


Diverging

by LovesBitca8



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Goes With Han, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Canon Divergence - The Force Awakens, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Force Bond Shenanigans, Han Solo Lives, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Loss of Virginity, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Revenge Sex, bed sharing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21792871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovesBitca8/pseuds/LovesBitca8
Summary: Han catches sight of her first. He climbs the next six steps with eyes on her, like he’s approaching a stray cat.“Rey,” he says. “This is my son, Ben.” Her eyes flicker to Kylo Ren, face pink, eyes wet, and gaze intent on her. Then back to Han. “He’s coming home.”OrBen goes with Han. And Rey isn't happy about it.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 372
Kudos: 2377





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic in my head for months, and for no reason whatsoever I wanted to post this before, like I dunno, December 20, randomly. For no specific reason. What a weird date.
> 
> Thank you to the angels [ KyloTrashForever ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever) and [ monsterleadmehome ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterleadmehome) for looking this over for me. monsterleadmehome made this lovely moodboard as well.
> 
> For purposes of this fic, Finn waited outside while Han and Kylo Ren were on the bridge.

[ ](https://imgur.com/iCeaGkQ)

A stream of diagonal light cuts across them.

Rey stands alone, jaw open, heart squeezing, reaching for Finn's hand before remembering he'd kept watch. He'd kept watch so she could go back for Han and Chewie.

And she'd found a long bridge across an open void, a ray of light slicing through it, and two figures staring at each other. The darker one takes off his mask.

She gasps.

Han steps closer, and she wants to yell out. Wants to warn him. If you let him look inside of you, he'll find… everything.

It must be the way with Force-users. It must be that the mask needs to come off. That would explain—

It would explain how it felt. To be invaded. And picked apart.

And now the mask was off again, and Han—

Han's hands lift, grasping Kylo's shoulders, and even from here Rey can see his fingers digging in.

They're familiar. They must be. Han stepping so close to the monster with the same strong jaw as his, same smug lips and same thick waves of hair. Touching him in a stilted embrace.

The mask drops to the bridge with a thunk. Kylo unhooks his lightsaber, and Rey feels something contracting inside of her, something that seizes her muscles and holds her still, waiting. Waiting.

_He's going to kill him._

She watches Kylo extend the lightsaber. And she knows from the forest on Takodana that the red blades will extend upward, the crossguards appearing half a second later. Rey watches, knowing that Han is about to die – Han who'd just found her, like a rain storm sweeping across a parched field — and unable to do anything about it.

The hilt of the lightsaber transfers to Han's hand. Rey is about to scream out about traps and tricks, but Kylo's hand drops, and Han chucks the hilt away with a flick of his hand. It arcs, dropping out of sight into the void below.

Rey waits, trying to find the flaw. Trying to calculate the trick. Then Kylo's dark hair falls over his face as he tilts his head forward, landing on Han's shoulder. His gloved hands hang low at his sides, and then Han's arms are up, wrapping around Kylo Ren's back, like… like he's holding him.

She can hear herself breathing, waiting to understand. She still doesn't as Han turns them carefully on the bridge and begins walking back, an arm around Kylo Ren's shoulders.

She still doesn't as Chewie meets them, bowcaster lowered, reaching out to ruffle Kylo's hair with a furry hand. Kylo's dark arms encircle the wookie, and Rey looks for the flash of a blade.

They're moving toward her, the three of them. Like a team or a band of refugees. Chewie moves behind them as they climb the stairs to her, bowcaster raised and checking the hangar for Stormtroopers.

Han catches sight of her first. He climbs the next six steps with eyes on her, like he's approaching a stray cat.

"Rey," he says. "This is my son, Ben." Her eyes flicker to Kylo Ren, face pink, eyes wet, and gaze intent on her. Then back to Han. "He's coming home."

~*~

Chewie takes out the Stormtroopers trained on them as Han helps Kylo Ren strip off his robe and cowl. They toss them over the side, and the fabrics flutter down like a shawl caught in a sandstorm.

He takes off his arm wraps. Too recognizable. And he's left in thick trousers made from leather with suspenders over a sleeveless shirt.

He's shaking, and Rey knows it's not from the cold outside the door.

Han takes off his jacket, drapes it over Kylo Ren's shoulders, and guides him outside as they blow the detonators.

Finn spins around as the door squelches open.

"We have to go! The weapon—" He stops when he sees a fourth person.

"Finn. This is my son. We rescued him."

Finn's eyes are wide with surprise, and Rey watches as Finn extends a hand, clasping Kylo Ren's arm. "Good to meet you. But we gotta go!"

Han and Kylo Ren follow Finn through the snow to the Falcon. Rey pauses, almost screaming out for Finn to wait.

This is a trap. This can only end badly.

The growl of the Wookie next to her nudges her to move.

She can't keep them safe if she doesn't follow them.

Once inside the Falcon, Chewie and Han strap into the cockpit, Finn buckles in near the common table, and as Rey runs for the gunner she hears Finn say, "Buckles are right here! Gotta strap in."

As she's firing up the cannon, she hears a low voice respond back to Finn, introducing himself as: "Ben."

Rey snarls, focusing her energy on shooting things.

Once they're clear of the planet's atmosphere, she unbuckles and runs to the common area, wondering if she'll find a massacre of Finn's limbs and blood sprayed everywhere

Kylo Ren is folded into the couch cushions, like a toddler after a tantrum. Finn's voice comes from the cockpit with Han. A growl from Chewie.

She strides toward Han, ignoring the dark presence on the seats — an oily sensation that drips from the back of her mind down her throat.

But Han passes her with a muttered, "Take over up there, kid?"

He doesn't look at her, eyes focused on Kylo Ren. She watches Han bring his tired, worn body to one knee, coming level to meet his eyes. Han's hand on Kylo's bare arm triggers a jerk of muscles, and swift look down to the contact. Han ignores it and grips him harder, whispering words about "your mother" and "same old cot in the back" and "we'll go slow, kid."

_Kid._

Rey blinks at the endearment. The one she thought belonged to her. But it seems she'd just been borrowing it for a while.

Chewie bellows for her, and Rey focuses, her feet carrying her to Han's chair.

As she and Chewie guide them through the system, Finn takes her silence as concentration and leaves the cockpit. Her ears are alert for any signs of struggle, but all she hears is Finn and his warm heart say, "You'll be alright. You're with the Resistance now."

~*~

When they land at D'Qar, Rey is itchy. Han let her and Chewie fly the entire way back. Finn never returned to the cockpit, but she hears his voice murmuring and telling light jokes with Han. She hears no third voice.

But she feels eyes on the back of her neck.

The image of a gloved hand reaches toward her mind, the feeling of his breath on her cheek as he teases her for her fanciful wishes of an island at peace.

_You know I can take whatever I want._

Is he searching her? Even now? Still looking for Luke Skywalker?

She concentrates on the feeling of pushing back as she had when she was strapped to the rack, and a weight lifts.

As she guides the _Falcon_ into the hangar, she hears one voice over the rest, speaking so softly but carrying almost across star systems to her.

"How did you all meet?"

Finn starts to tell the story, Han corrects him when he's bragging, but nothing else from the low rumbled voice that crashed into her eardrums and tore her mind apart.

~*~

A woman with tightly woven hair is the first thing Rey sees on the landing field of the base. She stands in the middle of a crowd running to congratulate the pilots and hugging their friends.

Rey's never seen this many people joyous in her life, but there's one speck of person who moves slowly toward the _Falcon_ , arms swinging uselessly by her sides.

She stalls for time as Chewie lowers the ramp and starts to cool off the engines. She heard over the comms that the Resistance was successful, and Starkiller Base was destroyed, but she hadn't expected the hundreds of people celebrating and screaming as they landed. There's too much happening. Too much noise.

Instead, she focuses on the lovely older woman as she approaches the _Falcon_ , stopping short and waiting.

She watches Han and Kylo Ren descend the ramp, pausing in front of the woman.

 _That's his mother_ , she thinks. _Han's wife_.

She sees Kylo Ren's eyes in her — his proud posture and tilted chin.

Through the viewport of the _Millennium Falcon_ , she sees a family reuniting. A soft hand laid over a son's chest. A look shared between two parents. A mother saying hello again. _It's been awhile._

Maz Kanata's voice is in her head, telling her that her parents won't be coming back for her.

She glares at the back of Kylo Ren's head, his hair falling forward into his face as he instinctively stoops for his mother's benefit. Why does he get this moment, when she never will?

Rey stomps around the _Falcon_ , helping Chewie — who also doesn't love large human crowds ( _Always someone under my feet_ , he growls) — and by the time she finally exits the ramp, Han is still standing there, watching his wife and son move into the Resistance Base.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Rey asks. "This could be a trap."

Han turns to her, and before he can shrug it away, she sees the apprehension in his eyes. "So you… you know who he is — was…?"

Han's hazel eyes study her face. She's reminded of how he offered her a position on the _Falcon_ , smuggling and having adventures. Would he be taking his son now? Or would he be staying for good, keeping his family together?

Rey nods.

"He's a good kid," Han says, watching them go. Rey almost laughs at his naïve attempts to lie to himself. "Just got a little lost along the way. We failed him. Leia and me."

 _Leia_. The princess. It all clicks together.

Frowning, Rey asks, "Does the Resistance know that Kylo Ren is Leia Organa's son?"

"No," he says with a sigh. "That's just between a few of us. Told them all our son was kidnapped by the First Order and held prisoner there." He turns to her, eyes imploring. "Are you gonna tell them?"

She still feels like Han is missing the danger here. Kylo Ren has just been welcomed with open arms into center of the Resistance. How can he not see that?

"What did you say to him to make him come with you?"

"I told him we wanted him to come home." Han scratches his jaw. "He said he was in pain, and I told him he could come with me." Han takes a shaking breath. "I hadn't seen his face in years. Bit of a shock, seeing him again."

"He took off his mask to interrogate me," Rey says, and she doesn't know why she wanted to share it.

"He did? I heard he was forbidden from appearing without his mask." Han turns over his shoulder, eyeing the direction Kylo Ren disappeared with his mother. Han looks back at her and gives her a grin. "Well, I can guess why. Probably the first pretty girl he's had contact with in—"

Rey shudders, a violent movement that steals the breath from her lungs. Something clicks into place, something dark and clawing at her insides. The way the mask had tilted at her, the way his eyes passed over her while she was strapped to the rack, the shivering of her skin on the _Falcon_. It wasn't any different than the looks she'd get at the Niima Outpost from travelers just stopping in.

Han stops, his face falling. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"I'll keep the secret. But I don't trust him."

She turns and disappears back inside the _Falcon_ , repairing the damage done during their escape.

~*~

She meets Poe Dameron in the mess hall. Not dead. He regales Finn and her with the story of how he'd survived the crashed TIE fighter. BB-8 beeps along encouragingly next to the table. Finn laughs and interjects.

And Rey feels again that she'd only been a poor substitute to both of them. BB had his master back. Finn had his friend again.

Rey picks at her fruits, but even the delicate taste of food she's never even heard named can't distract her from the itchy sensation on her skin.

While Finn gets to know someone named Snap, Rey catches Poe's eyes drifting over her as she tells him the little she can about her life on Jakku. He has an odd habit of smiling when something isn't entertaining, and his body turns completely toward her when he talks, cutting off anyone sitting on the other side of him. The amount of attention he gives her makes her anxious, like she can't sit still.

"Finn said you were captured by Kylo Ren and the First Order," Poe asks softly, like she's some barmaid who would love a shoulder to cry on. "That must have been hard."

Rey frowns, and before she can find the right words to tell him to back out of her personal space, he says, "I was captured too. Interrogated for the map."

She blinks at Poe. "Kylo Ren interrogated you?"

He nods. "So I know how it feels. The pain was excruciating, like my eyeballs were melting."

Rey stares. It wasn't like that. It was the twisting of a key in a lock. It was a nudge in a certain direction. And when she followed the path back through the door and into his own mind, it was power. Raw and certain.

"I'm sorry you had to go through that—"

"Did he take off his mask?" she asks. "To interrogate you?"

_Does Poe know?_

He blinks, like he's not someone used to being interrupted. And before he can answer her, his eyes catch on something behind her. Something she feels running up her spine, settling into the back of her mind and collecting like sand.

Poe stands abruptly. Rey turns and sees Kylo Ren, showered and clothed in browns and greys, standing with Leia and Han in the doorway.

Rey holds her breath, knowing this is the moment. Knowing that if anyone will understand her hesitations, it's Poe. If anyone knows the dangers that Kylo Ren will present living in this base, it will be this man who was tortured by him.

Finn spins, looking to what Poe is gaping at. Rey watches as Poe removes himself from the table and moves slowly to where Leia is explaining to the most dangerous man in the galaxy what kind of fruits and grains they have.

She watches Kylo Ren tense, turning to Poe as he approaches. Rey feels the crackling of energy — a fight about to break out, a sandstorm about to spin.

His mother turns to Poe just as he comes within reaching distance, and Rey watches her eyes go wide in apprehension.

"Ben?" Poe murmurs, barely loud enough through the mess hall.

Rey watches with a sinking weight in her as Poe's hands come up to grasp the taller man's shoulders. Kylo Ren's eyes are glued to the floor as Poe Dameron claps him on the back in a short hug, his body stiff and immovable. He's hunched, almost ashamed of his height.

An image floats through her mind, quick as lightning — a gangly teenager, too tall for his body already, always bending at doorways and stooping to speak to people. Rey shakes her head, hoping to block any further unwelcome images.

Leia is talking quickly to Poe, her hand on Kylo Ren's elbow as he sways on his feet like a beaten animal.

And then Poe is guiding Kylo Ren over to their table. And his dark eyes meet Rey's with a snap, like he knew her exact location.

"Everybody," Poe announces to the pilots and friends gathered. "This is Ben, Leia's son. They rescued him from the First Order."

Rey feels her entire body on edge, vibrating with anger and hate. Poe guides Ben to sit with them — gingerly, like he was made of glass. He's across from her at the table, and his eyes don't meet hers again as Poe tells the group that they used to play Jedis together, fighting with sticks and going on childhood adventures.

_The pain was excruciating…_

"And Ben used to get so mad at me if I beat him!"

_...like my eyeballs were melting._

Rey glares at Kylo Ren. She knows he can feel it. Knows he can feel so much more coming off of her.

Can he really sit here with these good and honorable people and pretend to be a part of them?

"Did you two meet while you were held there?"

Rey blinks, realizing Poe is asking her a question. The table watches her expectantly, and Rey turns a hard gaze on Kylo Ren and says, "Yeah. You could say that."

Dark brown eyes look up at her as Poe says, "Wow. So all three of us escaped that monster, Kylo Ren."

Rey picks up her tray and storms off, feeling every gaze on her, especially Leia's.

~*~

Leia wants to see her the next morning.

Rey goes to meet the General after her first real shower in her life. She can still smell the soap on her skin when the door hisses open to the Leia's sitting room.

"Rey," the woman greets her. "You're Rey." There's a soft smile on her worn features, and instantly Rey feels welcomed.

"General Organa."

"Leia is fine," she says. "Just don't tell the pilots." She winks at her, and Rey is bewitched by the young woman she can glimpse behind the wrinkles and weary eyes. "Rey, you're from Jakku?"

"Yes. I was a scavenger."

Leia nods, like she's familiar with that kind of labor even though Rey knows she is not.

"I'm sorry you got pulled into all of this. We'd like to offer you a home here, but Han says you need to get back to Jakku."

_The belonging you seek is not behind you — it is ahead._

Rey swallows. "I think… I think I could be of some use to you. Here, in the Resistance."

Leia smiles and pats her arm. She offers her a chair and they sit together.

"You aren't sure about Ben," Leia says, cutting right to the chase.

Rey presses her lips together, biting back her response, but Leia continues.

"He's my son. I wasn't there for him like I needed to be when he was growing up." Leia turns to look out the viewport. "He chose to come home. It's all I ever wanted. But more than that, he's already given up First Order codes and schematics." She eyes Rey shrewdly. "In fact, we're evacuating this afternoon based solely on Ben's intel."

Rey's mind spins. _Can this intel be trusted? What if they cruise right into the First Order—_

"I know," Leia says. "I know it's hard to trust. But I trust him."

Rey frowns into her lap.

"Ben tells me you have the Force."

Rey's head snaps up. "I don't." Her skin feels too tight again, like she's being examined.

"Yeah, that's what I used to say too." Leia chuckles and leans back in her chair.

Rey thinks of how she could open the door to Kylo Ren's mind. How the guard released her and dropped his blaster at her simple request.

"My brother was the one who had the Force. _He_ was the Jedi. _I_ was the politician." Leia examines her with kind eyes. "You can be a scavenger _and_ have the Force, Rey. It doesn't have to be separate."

She thinks of the power she felt when she could best Kylo Ren while strapped to a torture rack. The exhilaration of being able to slip inside his mind and watch him cower before her. _Her_. Rey from nowhere.

But these can't be a Jedi's thoughts.

Leia pulls her from her mind and says, "We have the full map to my brother now. In a few days — once we're securely at our next base, I'd like for you to go with Han and Chewie to bring him back."

Rey blinks. "Me?"

"I think Luke needs to see that there has been an awakening in the Force. There is someone he could teach. Someone who could help fix his mistakes."

Before Rey can ask _What mistakes,_ her mind has snapped in another direction.

"Has Kylo seen the full map?"

If Leia has disdain for the old name, she doesn't show it. "No. I told him that if he was to find a home here again, he had to give up his grudge against his uncle. He's resolved not to use the Force again until he is more grounded."

Rey bites her lip. "Is there a way to take the Force from him? Maybe dampen it?"

Leia takes a deep breath, studying her carefully. "I know you don't trust him." Rey blushes. "I know he took you prisoner and invaded your mind. He told me," Leia says softly, and Rey turns away. "He's trying to be better. Trying to block out Snoke's voice in his head. And I appreciate that you are keeping his secret for us. He will provide the Resistance with so much, but if the rest of them found out, it would be a mutiny. They don't know his heart like Han and I do."

She frowns at the rug, the only touch of decor in the small quarters. There's something strange about what Leia said about Supreme Leader Snoke…

"I'd like for you to keep an eye on him for us."

Rey snaps her head to Leia. "You would?"

"You don't trust him. You aren't blinded by love for him," Leia says, weary and somewhat resigned. "If you think he's slipping into old habits or behaving strangely, you can come to me."

Rey leaves her meeting with General Organa with more questions, and the lightsaber that gave her those visions on Takodana.

~*~

They leave D'Qar in a furious rush. The First Order's fleet has caught up to them, and Poe leads a group of bombers to destroy several of their Star Destroyers before they escape to refuel on a salt planet named Crait.

"Minimal losses," Han yells to her from above deck on the _Falcon_. She's fixing the wiring under the grate when he leans in and whispers, "Thanks to Ben. Could have been a bloodbath without that intel."

Rey grinds her teeth and focuses on the fuses she's working on.

The _Falcon_ rejoins Leia and the Resistance on one of the cruisers once they're in the clear. On the way to the mess hall that night, Finn introduces her to the Tico sisters — two pretty, dark-haired girls. But when they get to dinner, Kylo Ren is already sitting with Poe and the pilots, listening to them talk about their air fight with the First Order.

His eyes flick up to her when she enters, but cast back down to his dinner quickly. Rey, Finn, and the Tico sisters sit at a nearby table, Rey watches Kylo Ren closely as the Resistance pilots continue to celebrate their victory against his old regime.

~*~

As the days pass on their way to Crait, Rey feels anxious about her upcoming trip to meet Luke Skywalker. What if she doesn't really have the Force? What if he doesn't think she could be a Jedi?

There is a gymnasium room on the lower decks of the _Raddus_ where the pilots and gunners go to build strength. She doesn't work with the weights and the machines, but she follows Finn down there to watch the training and sometimes spar with Poe for fun. (The first time he'd said he would "take it easy on her," and that really hadn't gone well for him.)

She finds Kylo Ren on the mats now almost daily. She tries to go before breakfast, and he's there. She tries late at night, and he's there. She leaves every time, but not before his eyes flicker up to her, even when she's quiet or behind him. Like he can sense her.

One lazy afternoon, she wanders down to find him alone, working with a staff. It's all so familiar to her. The spins, the hits against the practice dummy. There are droids in the corner that he could operate to practice with, but he seems content to work his frustrations into the lifeless bodies of metal and wood.

She can't believe that anyone would see how he moves, how he batters the dummy, how he growls, and not know that he is Kylo Ren.

Leia fed them a lie before they left D'Qar that Kylo Ren had been defeated. It had boosted everyone's spirits. The man in question had looked down at his shoes and pressed his lips together as they quivered.

She decides that day not to run away. She moves to the practice droids, and grabs a quarterstaff from the wall of training weapons. She can feel his eyes on her, sliding over her skin and muscles and bones, but she wants desperately to be ready for her meeting with Skywalker. So she stays.

The droid pelts discs at her, and she blocks every one of them with the staff, hitting them back and smacking the side of the bot. She gathers the discs, ignoring the grunting and panting from the other side of the room, and refills the droid, setting the speed higher.

Several of the discs hit her this time, in the hip, on her shoulder. She flushes with embarrassment, hoping he's not watching her.

"Don't rest on your heels."

His voice crashes over her, like cold water on a hot day. She turns to glare at him.

"I wasn't asking for advice."

He's dripping, sweat trickling down from his temples. He's just in his trousers and undershirt, and she can see his arms are glistening as well. His chest rises and falls as he stares at her.

She resets the droid and leans forward on her toes.

~*~

Two days later, he's on the mats again before day cycle has begun. She is leaving that afternoon with his father to follow the path to Luke Skywalker, and she just wants one session without him watching her. Without his helpful hints, and without his quiet congratulations when she bests the droid at its highest setting.

The past few days have left her skin twitching and blood pounding. He's everywhere. And the way he _looks_ at her. Like he wants nothing else than to be inside of her again. To slither in through her eyes and live in her consciousness.

But there are moments — when she stretches on the mats, when she is greasy in the hangar under an engine, when she sucks on her spoon in the mess — moments where she wonders if he wants to be inside of her in other ways.

Ways she's only seen on the HoloNet and in dark alleys outside the cantinas as she makes her way back to her AT-AT.

So when she feels his eyes on her body again as she's wrapping her hands, preparing to pound them against a practice dummy, she feels like she's balancing on a string that may snap at any moment.

He's drinking from his canteen, taking a break. And as she steps up to the dummy, he says, "Have you ever done any reading on Ataru? You're quick enough for it."

A flash of an image in her mind. A lightsaber swinging quickly and twirling aggressively in complex patterns of offense. She blinks, and it's gone.

She spins to him, fuming. He's trying to get inside of her again. Sending her images.

He continues like she's not about to launch at him. "It's the fourth lightsaber form, but it's easy to learn without the first three." His eyes drop to her legs, gliding up over her hands balled into fists and her arms tight with unused anger. "I can teach you, if you'd like. Ataru and—"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't look at me like that." She hisses it at him, like it's the tenth time she's asked.

She expects him to ask for clarification, or send her a smug grin like his father surely would have.

But his eyes flicker away, mouth closing, and cheeks turning pink. He nods at the floor.

Rey was ready with a dig to his ego. Or an answer to _How do I look at you?_ But when he just turns away from her, agreeing to her request, it's like a confirmation. Like she's justified in feeling violated and consumed by his dark gaze. Like he already knew he shouldn't, but couldn't stop himself.

She turns and runs.


	2. Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WAS AMBITIOUS! lol. I'm still going to have this fic completely posted before 12/20, but I've upped the chapter count to 4, and I'm not positive about posting tomorrow. Ah, well. Such folly.
> 
> Thank you to [ KyloTrashForever ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever) and [ monsterleadmehome ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterleadmehome) for looking this over for me. 
> 
> And sweet [ mcal ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcal) made me this moodboard!

[ ](https://imgur.com/u42lbu3)

She doesn't see him again before she leaves with Han and Chewie. But still it's like she feels him. Like she still feels his eyes.

Han talks about him a lot. He brings him up in odd places: at the circuitry boards, in the cockpit. Apparently Ben Solo piloted the _Millennium Falcon_ by himself at the age of nine. Rey presses her lips together to keep from mentioning that she had repaired and ridden her first speeder at eight.

 _So there_ , she thinks to herself.

When they pull out of hyperspace and into the atmosphere of Ahch-To, Rey gasps. Han turns over his shoulder to check on her and smiles.

"Nice looking rock, huh kid?"

Rey comes to stand next to him, taking in as much of the island as she can. So much water. And a mountain. Things she'd never seen in her life.

But something pricks at her brain.

 _I see it. I see the island_.

She shakes away his voice, and concentrates on helping Han find a strip to land on.

Luke Skywalker is… not happy to see them.

Not even Han can brighten his mood with his bad jokes and out of place levity. Skywalker watches her carefully as she works with Chewie to unload the _Falcon_. She hears him ask Han about her.

Instead of eavesdropping, she takes a hike through the island's mountain range, leaving the three old friends to catch up. She's soggy with the morning mists by the time she returns to their camp, but the water brightens her spirits.

She finishes hauling her pack into an empty hut, content to sleep away from the snoring Han and growling Wookie for a few nights. Han and Chewie are drinking Ebla beer with Luke Skywalker on the _Falcon_ , and she feels a bit out of place when they talk about the Galactic Civil War.

She exits her hut as the sky clouds. And when she looks up she sees him there.

Kylo.

He stops in the middle of walking past her, about five meters away. Before she can wonder if he stowed away or flew on his own, he looks up. His eyes glide over her, lips parting to say something—

His mouth shuts. He looks away quickly, just as he did that morning in the gymnasium. Like he's just remembered that she doesn't like it when he looks at her.

He nods at her, eyes on the grass at her feet, and continues walking.

He's one step away from walking off the cliff when she screams, hand slapping over her mouth, eyes bugging out of her skull.

And he disappears.

Like a mirage in the Jakku sands.

Not falling off the cliff.

Just snapping out of existence.

"Everything alright?"

She spins to see Han leaning out of the _Falcon_ door, staring at her. Skywalker appears behind him.

She presses a hand to her thumping heart, waving them off.

Han shrugs. Luke Skywalker stares at her.

~*~

She's pulled out of a dream about fixing a turbo engine with tentacles for gears by a stirring in her veins.

Like the sound has been tugged from the hut, and the galaxy has hyper-focused into just one thing.

Something tells her to turn over, to look behind her. She twists.

Kylo Ren lies on his back next to her. She jumps, scrambling for the wall.

She blinks and he's gone.

She stays awake all night with the lightsaber in one hand, Han's blaster in the other.

~*~

"Master Skywalker?"

"I'm not your Master," he harrumphs, skinning the fish he caught that morning for breakfast. Han chews jerky next to the fire pit.

"Luke," she corrects herself. "Can I ask you about projection?"

"I know that word," Han grumbles. "Leia says I do it a lot."

Chewie barks next to him.

"Force Projection?" Luke prompts her. "It's possible."

She nods, pleased to be on the right track. "How?"

"It takes a tremendous amount of effort. And skill." His knife cleans the other side of the fish.

"And it's not… accidental?"

His knife pauses. She looks up at him and he's eyeing her. "No, it takes focus."

Her jaw grinds. He wanted to project himself here. To torture her. He projected himself into her bed.

"You doing some accidental projecting, Rey of Jakku?" Luke grins at Han over the fire pit. Even Chewie chuckles.

She glares at the Jedi Master. She never liked being teased.

"More than likely, Rey," Luke says, voice softer, "you're dreaming. Projection on-world is incredibly difficult—"

"What about across star systems?"

"Impossible. The effort would kill you."

She stares at him, waiting for him to explain. Waiting for him to give another reason.

It doesn't come.

~*~

Luke takes her to the Jedi temple later in the afternoon and tells her about the Force and the Jedi. She taps into something dark and twisting inside of her.

Something that tastes like him on the back of her tongue.

Luke looks at her in horror, fleeing from the temple. She watches him go, clinging to a rock, and wonders what Kylo Ren meant in the gymnasium when he said he could teach her.

What was he offering?

~*~

She's no stranger to sleepless nights, but staying awake the night before and resisting the call of the darkness earlier today fights against her plan to stay awake and wait for Kylo Ren to project himself to her.

Her head drops to the bench, fingers unclenching from around the hilt of the lightsaber.

She wakes several hours later to a warmth uncharacteristic to the island, feeling cocooned by her blankets. Her eyes flutter open to stare at the wall of the hut she's facing.

A heavy breathing behind her ear.

Her eyes snap open. She doesn't need to turn around to know it's him.

That's when she realizes there's a hand on her hip.

Her body freezes, waiting for him to attack. Waiting for him to grab her, to push her into the wall—

Something soft against her neck, warm and enticing. His mouth.

She's never had anyone kiss her neck in her entire life. But this might be what it feels like.

It's lazy, unhurried, and oddly non-antagonistic.

Any kissing she'd witnessed at the cantinas or in the market streets had been brutal smashing of mouths with teeth, leading to other things that she would look away from.

This was different.

A sound from his throat, and another press of his lips to her skin. She feels his nose in her hair.

Luke said she was dreaming. It's possible _he's_ the one dreaming.

Something moves between her body and the stone bench, and Rey silences her gasp when she realizes his other arm is under her. How long had they been like this?

He sighs and brings her closer. She stares wide-eyed at the wall, her backside pressed tightly to his front, and he's… bulging.

He rubs against her.

The arm under her hugs her close, twisting up to twine around her ribs. The hand on her hip slides to her belly. His lips on her neck whisper something into her hair as he rolls forward again. He might have grown larger behind her.

Her heart pounds, and her skin tingles.

She should ignite the lightsaber and slice his fingers off. She should reach back and break his nose with her palm.

He sighs as his hips press into her. He mouths at her neck. She can smell him.

She's never been held like this. It's not supposed to be like this. She thinks of the HoloNet videos of a man snarling and a woman cooing, like animals in heat. The human males on Jakku favored those videos, found release with them. That's what brutal men who kill things want.

But the panting along her neck whispers to her of softer mating, slower loving. Ways of coupling that only exist in her rare dreams.

His arms are wound around her ribs, and his fingertips slide up.

A heartbeat of pause, and then his hands cup her, her nipples cutting sharply against his palms, and she's about to jerk against him or peel him off softly, but a lazy " _perfect_ " passes through his lips into her skin, and then he has both hands on her breasts, arms crossing her chest, surrounding her, and his hips rut slowly as his breath pants into her ear.

She stares at the hut wall, her body rolling with every one of his thrusts. Like he's making love to her.

His teeth against her neck, and his hips start pushing faster — the bulge between his legs hard and insistent against her backside. Her body jerks with his thrusting.

This is closer to what she'd seen in the brothels. What she'd avoided with slaps of her staff, her long legs running.

But his fingers rub so softly on her breasts, like he holds something precious.

"Rey…"

She presses her lips together to hold her gasp. Could it be a dream? Does he dream of her often?

Is he here on purpose? Projecting somehow, just to get what he wanted from her?

 _Rey_. Like a prayer.

Her fingers tighten on the lightsaber, remembering it there with her. He grunts into her neck. And then suddenly one hand leaves her breasts and slaps down on her hip, holding her still as he jerks against her.

A tremoring sigh against her ear. His fingers press bruises into her hip. And it's over with another whispered, "Rey."

He disappears like vapor. The place where his arm cradled her under her ribs feels warm as her body adjusts to the bench without his presence.

She braces herself against the wall, feeling a pounding low in her belly. She's slick, like she's only been a handful of times.

She stares at the wall, too afraid to touch herself in case he comes back.

~*~

Luke Skywalker won't take her on.

 _I don't teach anymore_ , he says, but she knows he sees the darkness inside of her.

Maybe he sees Kylo around her like a sandstorm. Maybe he can sense him, maybe he knows what happened the night before.

Maybe she's not a Jedi after all.

Han tries to talk Skywalker into coming back with them, but a muttered conversation about "Ben" is all she can make out from her side of the fire pit. Skywalker glances at her, and asks Han if he'd go for a walk with him. She sits with Chewie, drinking blue milk in the twilight, and strains to hear Han's rising voice over the ocean. When the two men come back together, Skywalker looks older somehow, regret setting into the lines on his face. Han's jaw is firm as he stomps around the camp, picking up his things and heading into the _Falcon_ for the rest of the night.

The next day Han is grumpier than usual. Rey watches him pack their things and prep the _Falcon_ for takeoff. Skywalker comes to see them off, and though things are tense, Han gives him a stiff hug with a firm clap on the back.

"You'll tell him, won't you?" Skywalker asks. "Tell him why. Tell him I'm sorry."

Han nods and says, "You should come back with us. Tell him yourself."

Rey wanders up the _Falcon_ ramp as slowly as possible, but can't make out any further conversation.

Han leaves Skywalker a comlink for emergencies. She feels the Jedi Master's eyes through the viewports as she starts the engines.

She doesn't dream of Kylo on the _Falcon_. She doesn't sleep on the _Falcon_. Something keeps her awake. Maybe the feeling of being tossed aside again, of not being wanted. Maybe it's the fear of Kylo coming to her, with his father snoring in the next bunk over.

Or maybe it's a deeper fear. Something that called to her in the island. Something that still tastes like him on the back of her tongue.

~*~

Finn wants to know all about Luke Skywalker. Rey disappoints him with how little she can contribute to his curiosities.

She's barely out of the hangar when she sees him again — in person.

He's working with Snap on an engine in dark green trousers and his normal black long-sleeves. He looks up from where Snap's pointing when her eyes land on him. Looking directly at her. His eyes flit over the _Falcon_ , over to his father and Chewie. Like he was taking in the whole scene, not just her.

 _Perfect_.

Finn leads her to the mess hall, as Han makes a direct line for Ben.

~*~

"Rey. Leia wants to see you in her quarters." Poe is already walking away before Rey can ask more.

She trudges through the corridor, trying to imagine what the General needs. She assumes Han told her everything — about how Luke isn't coming back, and how she won't be training to be a Jedi.

Her feet stutter to a stop. What if Leia knows what happened in the hut on Ahch-To? Would he have told her? Or is that just how the Force works?

Her pulse pounds in her ears as she approaches the door to Leia's room. She knocks, and the door hisses open.

"Rey, thank you for coming." Leia looks weary — in comfortable trousers and tight braids. "How was your visit with Luke?"

"It was"—she thinks of the training that ended before it began; the darkness calling for her; the cold of the island whenever Han, Luke, and Chewie would gather around the fire; the slow-building pressure between her thighs as gentle fingers plucked at her breasts—"unfulfilling."

Rey winces at her choice of words, but if Leia sees it, she doesn't comment.

"I'm sorry that Luke couldn't be swayed. He blames himself for a lot, and…" Leia trails off before switching gears. "Regardless, I wanted to ask if you'd done any meditation with Luke."

"Meditation? Yes, a little." She's about to tell her that it didn't go so well, but Leia's already gesturing for her to follow.

"There's so few people who can, and he's already told me he doesn't want my help," she says, leading Rey into a back room.

"Help with…"

But then she turns into a small room, all furniture pushed to the side and Kylo Ren sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back to the entrance. Her skin feels oily and thick and her chest is tight. There are lamps, books, and trinkets floating, but it seems as soon as she enters the room they begin vibrating, rattling.

"What is she doing here?" His voice is low, and all she can think of is _Rey_ and _perfect_ , and the way his hand had snapped down to her hip as he finished with her body—

"You won't let me help you. Rey is Force-sensitive as well, so I thought it could be—"

"Get her out of here."

The floating objects crash down to their surfaces, and Rey glares at the back of his head. She watches Kylo roll his shoulders, his neck tense.

"Don't be childish, Ben." Leia rolls her eyes.

"I thought he wasn't going to be using the Force anymore," she asks Leia. The accusation is there in her voice.

"Snoke is trying to commune with him," Leia whispers. "He hasn't been sleeping—"

"I'm right here," Kylo says petulantly. "Please leave. Both of you."

Rey is still trying to figure out what "commune with him" means, but she knows that if Kylo Ren doesn't want her here, then she wants to stay.

She marches around to the front of him, and watches his ribs expand with a measured inhale. "What do I have to do?" she asks Leia.

"It's a co-meditation. Another presence in the Force. An anchor."

Rey folds herself into a seated position facing Kylo. His eyes flicker up to her darkly before focusing on the carpet between them, and she barely hears Leia's goodbye as she glares at him, daring him to look up at her again.

She crosses her legs like Luke taught her and reaches out.

A wall in front of her, like deflector shields raising high up and arcing over, encasing him in dome.

He won't let her pass through his consciousness. Well, that's just fine. She won't let him either.

Closing her eyes tight, she focuses on that power she felt when she pushed him out of her mind, harnessing it until she can envision a bubble around her as well.

She feels the presence of everyone on the ship. The hope, the longing, the fear. There's a fluttering of life everywhere.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

Her eyes snap open. Kylo Ren's dark gaze is on her, drifting over her jaw, dancing up her cheeks, delving into her eyes.

She glares at him. He's looking at her in that _way_ again. Hungrily.

"Did he tell you about the Force? About your place in it?"

Swallowing, she resolves not to take the bait. "What did she mean? Snoke is trying to commune with you?"

His eyes flicker. "He's reaching out through the Force. Trying to get inside my head." And as an afterthought, with an intent gaze he says, "I'm not letting him." Like making her a promise.

She narrows her eyes at him before closing them, ignoring any further questions as she meditates alongside of him.

~*~

She finds him in the gymnasium daily, convincing herself that it wasn't her intention to do so.

The first day, he stops his work with a staff and turns to her, panting and sweating. His eyes dart away, and he reaches for his towel and puts away his equipment. She watches him leave.

A few days later, he's working with Poe. Or, more accurately, Poe is pestering him into sparring together. His eyes catch hers as the door opens, and when Poe flags her over, Kylo retrieves his canteen from the other wall. Several other pilots and officers work with each other on the other side of the mats, and she goes to sit by Finn who seems to be recovering from a recent match.

"Poe's looking to prove something today?" she asks, stealing a bite of the protein bark Finn's unwrapping.

"He just wants him to feel included, I think."

"He _wants_ his ass kicked," Rey says.

Finn laughs. "Poe! Rey's got twenty on Solo!"

Poe gives her a faux-wounded reaction, woefully dramatic. Rey ducks her pink cheeks, grinding her teeth together. Kylo caps his canteen.

Rey watches as Poe convinces him to work some basic hand-to-hand combat. Kylo looks like he's about to take it far too easy on him. And Rey calls out, "Come on, Solo. Don't hold back."

His throat bobs. He cracks his neck.

Poe holds up his hands in some specific style of combat that Rey's only seen in the cantinas and alleys. One hand protects his face as the other readies to take swift jabs at Kylo.

"Careful Poe! He's got the 'Force!" one of pilots cheers. No one has seen Kylo use the Force since arriving, so few of them even believe he has it. They just know he's the Jedi son of Leia and Han.

Kylo follows him with his eyes, turning with him. He's relaxed. Hands at his sides. Poe is light on his feet.

A swift jab from Poe's right hand—Kylo weaves away—followed by a curve from Poe's left—Kylo bats his hand away like it's no more than a fly.

"Oh shit." Finn laughs next to her. "He's in so much trouble."

"I told you," Rey says, eyes on the muscles of Kylo's arms.

Poe seems to have realized the same problem. He lands a few hits against Kylo's side, but Rey assumes they only land because Kylo lets them. Poe steps forward, and Kylo dips his head back as he kicks at Poe's calf, knocking him to the ground.

The room erupts in laughter. Poe stands, throwing his hands up in playful defeat. Almost as if _he_ let the other man win.

As Poe claps him on the back, Kylo's eyes dart to her before looking back down to the mats.

"Don't know why you thought you could take him on," Finn jeers. "You lost to Rey last month!"

"Hey! That was with the quarterstaff." Poe sips his water, sending her a wink.

"I could take you hand-to-hand as well," Rey quips. And something dark pulls inside of her, something that beckons her to the taste of him. "I could take Solo, too."

The room of boys laugh, cheering her on. Kylo's eyes meet hers before they flip away.

"Two Jedis! Could be interesting!"

She stands. And the sound trickles out of the room as the pilots realize she's volunteering.

"You game?" she asks him.

The room shifts its weight. The chuckling comes from the corners. But Kylo's eyes are caught on hers. For the first time in weeks.

She feels the silence like a pulse.

Finally, he looks away. "That's not a good idea."

"Afraid you'll get beat by a girl?" one of the pilots calls out.

"Oh, I know I will," Kylo says. He smiles down at the practice mats. It's the first time she's seen his teeth.

"Come here, cupcake," Poe says in that oily voice. He holds out his hand for Rey. "I'll let you kick my ass again."

The room laughs again. Poe takes her to the mat, offering to spar with her. She grabs her staff and let's Poe choose two small practice sabers.

She's prepping her position with Poe when the hum in her veins cuts off. Kylo had slipped out.

~*~

The First Order finds them the next time they stop to refuel. Rey stands with Leia at the Command Center on their small jungle planet. Kylo Ren hovers over the monitors, analyzing the attack sequences and — Rey can only guess — sending information to Leia through the Force. Leia calls out orders and codes that make no sense to the Commanders, but once the defense has been initiated, they celebrate each hit, each fallen TIE fighter.

But even with Kylo's help, their X-wing fleet is diminishing fast. She hears Poe report that they lost most of the Blue Squadron.

A growl to her left, and Rey watches Kylo Ren storm out of the Command Center.

"Ben! Get back here!" But he doesn't respond to his mother's call.

Leia nods at her to follow.

Rey catches up with him in the hangar. She swerves around a Medical droid and watches him jump in an unmanned X-wing and start the engines.

"Ben!" Han's at the _Falcon,_ preparing with Chewie to join the fight.

The X-wing rumbles out the hangar doors. Rey runs to the _Falcon_ and up the ramp, taking the second gunner position.

As Han flies them through the air strike, she and Chewie take out as many TIE fighters as they can. She keeps an eye on the X-wing Kylo Ren stole, waiting to see him sabotage the Resistance.

But instead she watches in fascination as the starfighter flies rogue through the mess of destruction, taking down TIEs and speeders and zipping around the cruiser hovering above while Leia and the Command team are shuttled to the _Raddus_.

When they dock in the cruiser after escaping to lightspeed, Rey runs down the _Falcon's_ ramp to see Kylo Ren slithering out of the X-wing. Poe and Snap are on him in seconds, hugging him, slapping his back, screaming, "That's Han Solo's son, alright!"

She watches him duck his head, his lips splitting into a small grin. And she feels a fire burn in her, watching all of them welcome him, completely unaware. And he just accepts their praise.

Paige Tico leaps into the jumble of limbs next, and when she reaches up to hug him, his arms wind around her back quickly before dropping her.

And Rey thinks of hands on her breasts, arms wound around her stomach, and breath puffing into her ear.

She turns away and goes to find Finn and Rose in the maintenance hangar.

~*~

Two mornings later, she finds Kylo Ren in the gymnasium before breakfast. Sweat drips from his face, his arms bare in his undershirt. He's working with a plastic practice saber. Probably the same weight and length as his discarded lightsaber.

He pauses when the door shuts behind her, and before he can pack up his things, she walks to the equipment wall, grabs a staff, and twirls it around her wrist in figure-eights.

"Without an audience?" she asks.

He stares at her through the flashing of her staff. "You want to hurt me?"

She stops. The staff ceases, landing squarely to dig into the mat. "I want to _beat_ you."

He takes a deep breath, something that flows through his shoulders as they roll backwards. He faces her, twisting his practice saber around his wrist. She imagines the red flash of light that would usually cast across his face.

They stare at each other, and she feels her heartbeat syncing to something darker. Some need that she'd not yet fully explored. The reason she'd woken before dawn this morning to find him.

She hopes it's revenge.

She knows it's not.

He doesn't move first. It's part of his new personality.

She charges, slicing through the air, waiting for his parry. Spinning the staff over the back of her hand, she knocks his thighs. Smirking at her victory, she watches him twirl the practice saber and reset.

Striking first again, she barrels at him with above strikes, slashing cuts, and quick hits.

He blocks, swerves, and side-steps.

She's exhausting herself, moving too aggressively against him as he does very little with his body in defense. She's panting by the time he slaps the saber against her side, finding a quick opening.

"You should train with the lightsaber," he rumbles. "It's lighter than your staff. You'll be quicker." He blocks another of her swings. "I can show you how—"

"You're not going anywhere _near_ a lightsaber," she snarls.

His face drops into resignation, and he pivots into several strikes that she parries with ease. Watching his feet advance, she uses the same movement against him the next time she's on the offensive. Her body knows it like a dance she'd learned years ago.

When they reset, he breathes deep, refusing to charge at her again. It's maddening.

"You think you're a brand new person now," she hisses, feeling the anger in her veins again as she twirls the staff toward him. "But I know who you really are, _Kylo Ren_."

His left eye twitches, and his lips press together. He attacks her now, striking down and backing her off the mat. She twirls under his arm and turns them around, ducking a swing that would have taken her head clean off.

Rey flips the staff up under his knees, bringing him to the floor. His hand tugs at her ankle, and she comes down hard on her knee, crying out in pain.

Before she can recover, he's twisting to bring her down to the mat.

She tumbles them over, seating herself on top of him, pinning his shoulders down. His dark eyes stare up at her, breath panting through his lips.

 _Perfect_.

She holds on top of him, shifting her hips, feeling her blood swirl in her body like a dance.

"You win," he says. And she knows he let them get here. He let her pin him here. It infuriates her. He pushes his shoulder up, ready to move on, to let this pass. She shoves him back down. He glares up at her. " _You win._ What else do you want from me, Rey?"

 _Rey_. The ghost of it across her neck as he climaxed.

He flips her over and she continues to roll them, scrambling on top of him again. She's pressing him down into the mat, and he's giving up control to her with an exasperated huff. She searches for it. For a sparkle in his eye or a… reaction.

She rolls her hips down on him, feigning rearranging their positions.

She can feel him. He twitches in his trousers. She bites her lip and does it again.

His eyelids flutter up at her, lips parting. His full lips. She remembers them on her neck, soft with reverence and rough with desperation.

"Did you think it was a dream?" she hisses, rolling down on him again, connecting their bodies, feeling a thrumming from her core.

His throat bobs, and he stares up at her, focus split between her words and her actions.

"When you used my body for your pleasure?" she clarifies. She leans down over him, her torso hovering over his chest as she rubs herself on him.

He gasps, and she can feel the pull of air, can feel his stomach shift with it.

"What are you—"

"You were behind me. And you had your hands on my breasts," she says. His eyes widen, and she sneers down at him. "It wasn't a dream. I was awake."

His lips tremble as he says, "Rey… I didn't—"

"You called me perfect."

She's jerking her hips now, feeling him hard and long between her legs. There's a pressure in her stomach she's only felt a few times before, and she chases it at a gallop.

His eyes have darkened. His tongue wets his lips, and he places tentative hands on her thighs. She uses all she has in the Force and his hands snap back to the mat. He stares up at her with something like awe, breathing heavy.

Rey sits up tall, pressing her hands against his firm chest. She feels sweat dripping down her spine, down the back of the thighs. She runs her fingers over his ribs, wondering if men are sensitive there too.

His lashes flutter and the blush on his neck rises up his jaw.

There's something just out of her reach, something she's running toward. She closes her eyes. Maybe it's not him. Maybe she needs to think of another body under her.

A thousand different men and women flicker through her mind, and none of them sizzle her like his darkness does. She thinks of being strapped to the chair, of the way he wanted her then.

Her eyes snap open to him, and he's sweating and panting. His hips start to jerk up to hers. His hands are in fists where she still has the Force pinning them down.

"Let me touch you," he whispers. "I can make it better—"

"No."

She shakes her head down at him. He's going to feel it the way she did. He's going to feel that helpless thrumming.

If he wanted to, he could break the hold on his hands. He could flip them, rip through her garments, and touch her wherever he wanted.

But instead he asked her.

She hisses down at him, bouncing over him, wondering what he feels.

His eyes start to roll back, and he groans, his fingers twitching. His hips push up against her quickly, and she meets his thrusts. Her body bounces with the force of them together.

He takes a deep breath, eyes locking onto her.

She's so close to it. She can taste him on the back of her tongue. And she wonders about tasting him, about leaning down and pressing her mouth against his lips. Like they do in the love stories. She'd never seen them press their mouths together in the Holovids or the alleyways in Jakku.

She looks into his eyes, wondering what he's thinking about with his concentration on her.

And then she feels it.

A light pressure between her legs, right where she's been connecting the two of them. It feels like fingertips.

She looks down at his hands, still restrained on the floor. Then to his eyes, dark and focused.

It presses harder, and the high she's been chasing inches closer. Her jaw falls open in a sigh.

Kylo licks his lips, and the fingertips swirl between her legs.

It feels like grappling down in the junkyard without a rope. It feels like flying the _Falcon_ for the first time. It feels like landing a square hit to someone's face with the end of her staff.

She yells out, unable to hold back her voice as the sensations churn inside of her, her body squeezing tight. She hears him grunting. She feels hands snap to her hips. And as she's falling over the edge again, he's slamming her body against his own, his hips thrusting up against her, and the Force pushing hard against her center, not letting up on the swirling.

The sound from his throat as she whimpers, her body shaking, is animalistic and gruff. She peels her eyes open to see him watching her, bouncing her on his hips, teeth cutting into his lower lip. His hands are on her body again, squeezing her waist, pulling her down hard, and she imagines what he'd be like inside of her. If he'd rip her open until she sobbed, or if he'd lay back and take it from her until she finished first.

She'd thought the first, but when he grunts her name again — "Rey" — and stills under her, hands sliding to her backside, eyes screwed shut, she thinks it might be the second.

She'll have marks on her body again. He marked her again, she can feel it on her waist and hips.

Like she belongs to him.

Ignoring the moisture staining the fabrics between them, she stands on shaking legs and sprints for the door without turning back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 will post tomorrow(ish).
> 
> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://lovesbitca8.tumblr.com/) and [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/).


	3. Burning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. I actually DID have this written earlier this week, but went on an internet blackout to avoid spoilers. And apparently even AO3 wasn't safe. Please don't talk about TROS in the comments, for the sake of your fellow Reylos. 
> 
> Enjoy... the sexy times.

She sees him in the mess hall for dinner that night. He looks up as soon as she enters and watches her grab a few things before heading back to her room.

She thinks of him while everyone is at dinner and she has her bunk to herself. Her hand slithers into her bottoms and she tries to touch herself the way the Force touched her.

When she's panting and jerking against her fingers, she feels the sound cut from around the room, and she knows he's there. Her eyes squeeze closed, and she ignores the feeling of him next to her in the room until she comes with a shout. When her eyes open, he's gone.

~*~

She sits facing him at dinner for the next week. She watches the way he eats, the way he talks to people. He gazes at her when he's not engaged in conversation.

Once, while Poe is telling a story to everyone and eyes are all on him, she thinks of fingers running across his chest and lower, sliding across his stomach. She focuses on the feeling of skin against skin and the pressure.

He's watching Poe, furrowing his brow. And then he sucks in a breath as the group laughs. His eyes snap to her.

She thinks of hands on his thighs, sliding along the tops. She imagines the warmth of her hands against his skin.

He swallows, and looks down to his lap. He closes his eyes, breathing deep, and then sends her a glare.

She doesn't have experience with genitalia. She doesn't know what you're supposed to do with… one of those, but she tries to imagine the shape of it from the Holovids she's seen. She thinks of light fingers trailing along the length of him—

Kylo stands, and excuses himself. He's out the door in seven long strides.

Rey smiles.

~*~

She finds him at the gymnasium the next morning, sweating and grunting and breaking things.

When he feels her presence, he stops, panting and pressing his eyes closed. He doesn't need to look to know it's her. He waits, dripping and vibrating.

She turns him with forceful hands, pressing him back against the practice dummy he was destroying. He opens his eyes when her hand slithers into his trousers, reaching for him. His gaze is bright and frightened when she wraps her fingers around him, and his lips part when she pulls him out of his trousers and looks down at him.

He twitches in her hand, growing larger as she looks down.

"Rey, what are you doing?"

"Don't speak."

She pulls at the flesh gently, getting used to the weight of it even as it grows heavier.

"Like this?" she asks, watching as her hand circles him.

He pants, and his skin smells like sweat. "Lick your hand. And then tighter."

She does as he asks, and watches the skin blossom to a red color, thickening. "Tighter?" she asks.

"That's—that's good. Could be tighter, but—"

She squeezes just a bit more, and he groans. His hands reach for her shoulders. She breathes in the sensation of his hands against her skin before saying, "Release me."

His hands drop, and he gasps when she twists her hand to a different angle. She does it again, and watches one of his fists smack the dummy behind him.

"Let me touch you."

"No. Don't use the Force either."

He grunts. She hasn't looked up to his face once. She's afraid of what she'd find.

The member stands up on its own now, and Rey just shifts her fist along the length. "Faster?"

"Yes," he hisses. "Rey, please let me—"

"Don't."

"Why? Fuck, why?"

She doesn't know. She licks her lips, and moves her hand faster.

When his hips jerk with her hand, she says, "What do I do at the end? How do I make it end?"

He wheezes, and she can feel the air against her forehead. "Just don't stop."

His hands try to reach for her every five seconds. She counts. So she really shouldn't be surprised when the liquid pulses from his cock, and his hands grab her face, dragging her up to his lips.

Her mouth is tight against his, but his breath is panting hot air against her and his lips are soft and full against her firm ones.

His eyes are closed. She can tell because hers are open.

His fingers are soft on her jaw now as he tries to kiss her again, tries to soften her, tries to engage with her.

She pulls back, staring down at the mess on her hand. He grabs a rag, already wet with his sweat, and wipes her off, whispering apologies and encouragement and other nonsense.

Once she's clean, she turns on her heel and exits, ignoring the voice asking for her.

~*~

She's leaving the mess hall the next day when she feels his presence in the Force. He hadn't been at dinner. She hadn't seen him since the gymnasium.

She follows the energy to a small room just off the side of the mess hall. When she opens the door, she finds him standing in the middle of an empty supply closet. His eyes run over her body when she steps inside and shuts the door behind her.

They stare at each other in silence until she says, "What?" with a snap to her teeth.

He swallows. "Can I touch you?"

"No." She doesn't want that. She doesn't want him to have that kind of power over her. "Why do you want to?"

He blinks at her, lips trembling. "I want to make you feel good."

"I feel fine."

His eyes are dark as he stares down at the floor, nodding. He's wearing black trousers and a white tunic shirt. He looks like his father like this. And she hates the costume. She wants him in all black. It's uncomplicated.

But something thrums in her body. And when he looks up at her, eyes awkwardly flicking to the door behind her, she doesn't know why she doesn't move.

"I can make myself feel good. I don't need your help."

His eyes snap her. He takes a sharp breath, and she watches his cheeks flush. "I know. I saw." She nods. "You don't want my hands on you?"

"No."

He licks his lips. "What about my mouth?"

Rey stares at him, mind working. "What does that mean?"

Kylo blinks at her, lips opening and closing. "I can show you."

He steps towards her, and her hand shoots out to stop him.

" _Show_ me," she demands, and opens her mind to him.

He swims inside of her consciousness immediately, like he'd been pressed to the door before it opened. He sends her an image. She's laying down on white sheets in a bed bigger than she's ever seen. She's naked, and her breasts are slightly larger than they really are. But his head is between her legs, his black hair fanned out over her thighs and hipbones. He kisses her cunt, and his tongue slides along her hairless pelvis like a Loth-cat.

He removes himself from her mind, and she's looking at his hair now, imagining it tickling her thighs.

"Why do you want to?" she repeats.

"You made me feel good. I want to return the favor." His eyes are hot and dark. He's moved closer to her.

She reaches for her trousers, undoing the simple belt holding them up.

"We can go back to my room—"

"No. Here."

She wonders where the large bed with white sheets is. If he has one. If it's his bed she's moaning in.

Her trousers drop and she steps out of them. She's not hairless. She wonders if that will bother him.

His eyes are still on her face. She reaches up for his shoulders, and pushes him to his knees. He's still looking up at her, like she's the sun goddess on Jakku. His fingers brush lightly against her hips, running pathways along the outside of her legs. He finally tears his eyes from hers and looks at her cunt and sucks in a breath.

She frowns down at him. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing," he says, staring at the juncture of her thighs. His thumbs stroke over her lower stomach and he breathes, "Nothing. You're" _—perfect—_ "perfect. I've thought about this…"

He mumbles praises into her skin as his lips press forward, brushing softly against the skin below her belly button and lower. Rey stares down at the top of his head. He's thought about this. About exactly this? A closet in the Resistance base? Or a large bed with white sheets—

"Everywhere," he answers her, and she jolts, closing down her mind. "In the mess hall." A kiss to her thigh. "In the Falcon." His tongue on her hip. "In the gymnasium." His lips press over her center, soft and sweet.

Rey stares into the darkness of the storeroom. He's thought about this. He's allowed to say it out loud.

Has she thought about this? Not _this_ in particular—she didn't even know what _this_ was until a few moments ago.

His large hands drag up the backs of her thighs and cup the curve of her backside. His tongue passes over her slit.

Has she thought about him like he thinks about her?

She looks down at the top of his head, buried in her thighs, his shoulders struggling to fit between her legs. She'd thought about his chest, thought about his width.

"Take off your tunic," she rumbles.

His eyes flip up to hers, his tongue in the middle of slipping through her. He pulls back with hot eyes and tugs the shirt out of his trousers. He struggles it up over his head, and she sees scars and saber bites littering his porcelain skin. But the way he tosses the tunic to the floor has her eyes catching on his arms. The flutter of his hair as it resettles.

He watches for her permission as he presses close to her cunt again.

Cunt. She'd learned that word from the brothel women. Heard it laughed in the cantinas.

She wonders how his lips would form the word.

He lifts her leg, opening her thighs and placing her knee over his shoulder. The sensation of skin against skin shocks her, but she can't focus on anything but the vigorous examination of her cunt by Kylo Ren's tongue.

It's unpleasant and addictive all at the same time. She feels his hair against her inner thigh, tickling and mocking her. Her calf slides along his back with every movement of his head against her.

He laps at her. And she doesn't know if the slow dripping is normal, but when his tongue collects it like nectar, he groans. His fingers squeeze her backside so tightly, she knows there will be marks again.

She feels her nipples pull tight under her wraps whenever he passes over one spot, and she can hear her breath coming quickly. He skims that spot again, tongue pressing harder against her, and suddenly a sharp moan jumps from her chest. She slaps a hand over her mouth, and he pulls her hips closer, her back arching off the wall.

He learns quickly. He focuses all of his attention on that spot. His tongue pushing, his lips nipping, his breath panting.

He swirls a pattern over it, and Rey bends, falling forward with a groan. Her hands dig into his hair, and she feels like she floating with only one foot on the ground.

There's a current thrumming through her, and the feeling spins around her stomach, flowing through her shaking thighs.

It's exactly as it felt for her own fingers to find that spot, but she can't guess what Kylo Ren will do next. He varies his pressure and tempo.

And then he tries something else, and his lips kiss and suck at her, and when he sucks at that spot, she curses, fingers tearing at his hair. Her hips jump against his mouth.

He continues, and she pushes back against him as he sucks at her. She's muttering things that she hopes make no sense, and his fingers push hard into her backside, lifting her to her toes, and he groans into her cunt. The vibrations make her yell.

It twists inside, and it feels like a tight knot tugging, tugging, until it comes loose. She screams, fingers in his hair, body bowing forward. She'll fall forward to the ground, surely. But as she crests and falls and clenches, he has her in his hands—his shoulders and arms and hands—and she thinks maybe he's floating her with the Force.

Her feet touch down. She heaves in air as her hands steady herself on his shoulders. He pulls back, face shiny with her slick, and his eyes are bright and burning through her when he asks, "Was it good?"

She watches him lick his lips, pulling as much of her inside of himself as he can. And she feels a sudden warmth inside of her chest, something like fondness, but that couldn't be.

"Yes," she responds shakily. When his face brightens, she thinks she should have told him it wasn't that great. Nothing she couldn't give herself. Nothing she couldn't find elsewhere.

"Do you want me to do it again?" He squeezes her hips. She feels his breath panting against her stomach. "Or we can do something else. Anything else."

That warmth flares again. She realizes that Kylo Ren is on his knees before her, offering her anything she wants.

And she wonders if all _he_ wants is—

"You want to be inside of me?" she asks.

The eagerness melts off his face, replaced by a yearning hope. "Yes."

When she says nothing else, he slowly comes to his feet. She watches his eyes as they grow taller and taller, his body wide and consuming her field of vision. She tilts her neck back.

"If you'd like, I can come to your quarters tonight," he whispers.

She twitches — his scent on her sheets, his body in her space, his eyes on her few meager belongings.

"No."

He swallows and nods, looking down in rejection.

"Now," she breathes. Her skin is buzzing with the memory of his mouth on her sex, and when he looks up at her, she feels her chest tighten.

His lips quiver before he leans down and kisses her.

She's not sure where this fits with her recent idea of fitting their bodies together. But he presses his tongue to her lips like he might get inside that way. She's about to press him back and tell him to get on with it when his body crowds her, and the feeling of how hard he is already against her stomach makes her gasp.

His tongue touches hers, and he moans.

One more roll of his hips to hers, and he says against her lips, "My bunk is close. Or there's—"

"Why?" she asks. "Right here."

Rey turns around and faces the door, pressing her hands to the wall like she's seen the women in the Holovids do. She spreads her legs, her trousers already off.

Kylo doesn't move behind her, but she can hear him breathing.

"Like this?" Is it disappointment she hears in his voice?

"How else?" She turns to look over his shoulder. His eyes are on her bare backside, and she can see how his chest rises and falls quickly, though he hasn't done anything strenuous. "This is the way you dreamt it, no?"

His dark gaze snaps up to her, and she sees a pink blush spreading across his cheeks. The way he'd held her close and rutted against her from behind.

"One of the ways," he whispers, and she feels his breath disturb the hair coming loose from her buns. One of his hand drops on her shoulder lightly, running fingertips down her arm bands. "There are other… positions. You can be more comfortable."

She shivers from his attention, from his hands on her skin.

Rey spins back to the door, planting her hands firmly. "I don't need to be comfortable. I just need to you to do it, Kylo."

The fingertips drifting down to her elbow pause. He's still as stone behind her.

"I'm still Kylo Ren to you." He tests the statement in his mouth.

Rey turns over her shoulder again, feeling her arousal start to dissipate. She lifts a brow at him in question.

"What else would you be?"

She doesn't understand how wide and open and trusting his eyes are on hers until the expression shutters. A muscle under his left eye twitches. He takes a step back and looks at the far wall. There is a long moment strung between them, like a coil about to snap.

"You go. I need to…" He gestures uselessly down at himself where he's still bulging.

She turns. "You don't want to?"

"Not today." Swallowing, he shakes his head. "Not if—"

"We can go back to your quarters," she says, suddenly. A sharp feeling in her stomach makes her think of sand and scratches in a durasteel wall and cold nights in a bed that was never so comfortable as the large, white-sheet bed he knows. "If that's what you want."

His chest shakes with an unsteady inhale. "Maybe another time."

She feels the absence of his eyes on her. Tossed aside again. Said the wrong thing again. Doesn't measure up again.

But if he wasn't going to use her for pleasure anymore, who would he? She thinks of Paige Tico's lithe body wrapping around him in the hangar, her soft face smiling into his neck—

Rey steps into him, grabbing for his leather buckle.

"Rey—"

"You still need to finish, right?"

"You don't—"

Her hand is in his trousers wrapping around the thick member. His breath stutters. She remembers to lick her palm, like he taught her, and then she's stroking him, feeling his air hit her forehead in rough pants.

He's not as firm and long as he was in the gymnasium. Much less than he was minutes ago, after he'd been on his knees for her. After he'd pressed their tongues together.

Maybe he doesn't want her anymore. Already made up his mind.

She looks up, finding his lips pressed firmly together. He'd kissed her after he finished in the gymnasium as well.

Doing her best to continue moving her hand over him, Rey reaches up on her toes and pushes their mouths together.

It's instantaneous.

His hands snap to her arms, his face tilts toward her, and within the next moment his cock is growing again.

She's pushed back against the door, his body pinning her there with heavy breaths. His lips fumble over hers until she realizes that he wants her to open her mouth again. When his tongue presses inside of her, that unearthly moan pours from his lips.

It's not until he lifts her into his arms that she remembers that she's supposed to be stroking him. Her arms are positioned around his shoulders, and he grabs handfuls of her backside, encouraging her legs to wrap around his waist.

His cock brushes against her bare center, and Rey gasps in delight. Is this it? Is he going to penetrate her?

"It's okay," he whispers. "Not yet." And then his tongue in her mouth again as his hips roll into her.

It's starting to swirl in her again, especially as the length of him rubs against that spot he found with the Force, and then today with his tongue.

His teeth nip her lower lip so lightly, but the sensation rockets through her veins, curling her toes and tightening her thighs around him.

"Take this off?" He tugs at her twisting tunic, and when she nods, the scraps fall away with the Force.

She can feel his chest against her stomach, hard muscles and raised scars. He leaves her breastband on, and she's about to reach for it when his mouth descends on her neck.

Her cunt clenches. The memory of his lips on her skin in the hut on Ahch-To… the way he'd wanted her so desperately, so slowly.

When her head stops spinning, she has her hands in his hair, gripping him and holding him close. She must be held up with the Force because then one hand is between them, his fingers finding that center of pleasure and rubbing with firm strokes. She feels his cock bobbing on her stomach, forgotten. How strange that he ignores himself as her cunt starts to flutter.

"Inside?" she asks, almost begging. Hasn't begged for a thing in ten years.

He shakes his head against her neck, lips sucking at her, teeth grazing, breath panting.

But then his hand twists and his fingers circle her entrance, exploring. Her thighs are shaking, knees pinned to his hips. Her breath is ragged, his damp hair sticking to her lips.

His finger pushes inside — _inside_ — and it's a slick slide through her. She gasps and scratches at his shoulders, but he's the one that moans — like _he_ is the one being filled and completed.

She feels him leaking against her stomach, the fluid trickling between them.

His finger pulls out of her, and she whimpers. He pushes back inside, and she shudders.

His hips have started rolling, like searching for her body. Hers start to do the same, and he sighs into her hair and moves his fingers faster.

He stretches her open with a second finger, and she has to bite the skin of his shoulder to keep from yelping. Something — either the Force or his fingers — starts to rub at her bundle of nerves again, and her body starts to relax, starts to drift, starts to curl.

"Kylo," she whimpers into his ear. He pushes their lips together, silencing her.

His tongue is rough, but she finds that he mimics the movements of his fingers inside of her, thrusting and swirling.

She presses her tongue forward, trying to copy him. The moment she passes the boundary of her mouth to his, tongues touching, he shudders, groaning.

Something twists open in her mind, like a key turning a tumbling lock, and the dark consciousness she tasted on the back of her tongue pours into her own as his cock spurts between them. There's a heady pleasure seeping into her body — _his_ — and it drips down her spine, collecting in her hips until she's nothing but a tremoring spasm of pleasure, clenching around his fingers and screaming into his mouth.

She releases her bliss into his mind, and he groans, liquid still pouring from his cock.

Their pleasure spins, and she can't release his fingers, holding them inside of her as her back bows, fingers twisting in his hair.

When she finally releases him and slithers back into her own body, he's kissing her face, dropping soft kisses on her eyes, her cheek, her jaw.

"Rey."

She shivers.

She opens her eyes to find pitch black irises looking into her, and it feels like the island again. Like that darkness Luke warned her against, swimming up to meet her.

She likes it.

~*~

He's not in the gymnasium the next morning.

He's not in the mess or the Command Center or in Leia's quarters.

She'd gone to bed the night before more relaxed and content than she could remember in her life. Still she dreamed of him — of his long fingers and burning eyes. In her dreams, they had found that large bed with the white sheets, and he'd pushed inside of her roughly as she moaned, arching her chest towards him. He'd pinned her wrists to the bed and pleasured her as a storm crackled above them and black fire licked their skin.

She'd woken with a clawing need to find him, to make him touch her again.

Rey is just entering the hangar when she sees the ramp of the _Falcon_ raising, Han's boots barely visible before the doors close.

Reaching out with the Force, she feels Kylo's presence on board.

She watches helplessly as the _Falcon_ takes off, a strange feeling in her gut, stirring the memory of a different ship zooming off into a desert sky.

BB-8 whirs and beeps across the hangar, ordering around other droids to fix this and that. Rey runs to the droid.

"BB-8, where is the _Falcon_ going?"

_No coordinates. Captain's Log indicates exploratory mission. Destination unknown._

Rey blinks, turning back to the receding dot in the azure sky.

"For how long?"

_Three to five standard day cycles._

The twisting in her stomach subsides. It's not forever.

She thanks the droid and lets it go about its business once more, feeling a bit out of sorts for the rest of the morning.

~*~

It ends up being six days.

She feels the _Falcon_ dropping out of hyperspace in the early evening like a hum in her blood igniting again.

Rey jumps up from the table at the mess hall, drawing Finn and Rose's attention, and excuses herself to run to the hangar.

She's been using the practice saber in the gymnasium — the one he uses — and she's gotten quite good at deflecting the droid's bolts at the highest speed. She wants to take him to the mats and show him, see if he has critiques, see if he notices the way she's adopted some of his maneuvering from Takodana. And then ask if he'd like to writhe together again with their clothes on (maybe she'd even let him be over her, pin her hands to the mat, just like in her dream).

When she runs into the hangar, the _Falcon_ is touching down, extending the landing gear and hissing to a quiet. A droid beeps at her, asking if she requires assistance, so she turns to a few spare parts, pretending she had been in the hangar all along, not running to greet him eagerly.

They take their time disembarking. Han lugs his bag down the ramp first, giving her a quick wave when he sees her. She takes that as permission to approach and offer him help with the engine.

"Where'd you run off to?" she asks Han as innocently as she can muster. She feels Kylo's presence in the Force, still on the ship.

Han scrubs his face and looks over his shoulder. "Ben needed a bit of a little escape. Snoke is…" Han's eyes turn towards the floor. "Well, he's in his head a lot right now. So we took a little break. We were able to get some supplies in the Outer Rim, though."

As if on cue, Kylo Ren comes lumbering down the ramp, holding a large case of said supplies. His hair is limp, his eyes sunken. How strange that he would be so exhausted when she wakes every morning feeling refreshed and thrumming with energy — an energy she wants him to burn for her.

He doesn't nod at her, doesn't see her as he stumbles down and crosses to a transport cart. "I'll get these to the Med Bay," he calls out, setting down the case and following the droid.

Rey starts after him.

"Rey, uh…" Han gestures to the ship. "Can you help me with a few things?"

There's a flick of Han's eyes between her and his son's retreating back. If she hadn't been introduced to the Force, it's possible she wouldn't have picked up on a sharp spike of anxiety from Han in that moment. She doesn't know what to make of it, so she agrees, tossing one more look to Kylo as he disappears out the hangar doors.

~*~

The Resistance scores several victories against the First Order in the next week — destroying cruisers, depleting fleets, and securing new allies.

But Kylo Ren doesn't take an X-wing into battle again. He doesn't spar with the pilots in the gymnasium. He doesn't stand with his mother on the bridge, whispering First Order codes and tactics. When she does see him in the mess hall, he's a ghost of a person, grabbing a small meal before drifting away.

When there is a sense of stasis on the _Raddus_ again, Rey visits Leia's quarters, asking if Ky— _Ben_ — needs any help with mediation again. The general's smile is bright and searching as she invites Rey inside.

Rey slides open the door to the back room. The baubles and lamps hover and spin in pirouettes again. He sits on the floor with his back to her again, in only his undershirt and trousers. In front of him, a small potted plant blooms and inches toward him, like stretching for the sun.

She crosses the threshold, and the room shivers. The hovering items shake. The plant loses a leaf. He rolls his shoulders back.

Without waiting for an invitation, she pads around his form, folding herself into a meditative position across from him. He watches her with empty eyes.

Unable to wait any longer to speak to him (to hear his voice again), she says, "You've been busy."

His left eye twitches. But he says nothing else.

"Where did you go with your father? See anything exciting?"

He takes a deep breath through his nose. "Stayed in hyperspace mostly. Always moving."

She nods, pretending to understand. "You missed a few battles. A few fleets gunned down." She swallows and his eyes catch the movement. "I've been practicing—"

"Is there something you need, Rey?"

His voice is soft, but clipped. And still her ears sing with the sound of her name on his lips again.

Something she needs? She almost smirks back at him. _Why, yes, there is something…_

"Meet me in the gymnasium during meal time. I have a few new tricks to show you." His eyes on her face again embolden her to say, "And maybe you could show me something too…" Now she _does_ smirk.

The muscle under his eye trembles again. "That's not a good idea."

A cold breath cascades down Rey's back — like a door shutting somewhere, the air billowing through a drafty house.

"I'm recommitting myself to the Jedi," he says, as if from memory. "I'm doing penance, and then when I'm ready, I will return to Master Skywalker. I will forgive him. I will ask for forgiveness in turn. And we will mend our relationship as Jedi Master and Apprentice."

He speaks as if reciting a story to which he already knows the ending. His voice drones over her, and she thinks this sounds… fine. Isn't this what she wants?

"Alright."

"And in order to carve Snoke from my head," he says, "I'm cutting all ties to fear, anger, hate… and passion."

His eyes flicker up to hers. There's a fire there that quickly extinguishes.

"Passion," she repeats.

He nods, swallowing and looking down to the space between them. "So I think it's best if we discontinue our explorations."

Her cheeks flush. "I see." There's a burning hole in her gut that feels as if it will eat her like acid.

It's quiet for a moment. She can almost hear his breath as it leaves his body slowly.

And then he whispers, "When I met you, I thought you were the pathway back to the Light. But your anger… your hatred for me. And my passion for you… I can taste the Darkness again. It tugs at me when I'm with you."

His eyes are still downcast, and she wants him to look at her. Wants him to see how fine she is with this. How she judges him for trying to do this delicately. How she could shrug and tell him, _Fine._

His lips tremble with unshed words. And she wonders if she should have corrected him about her hatred. But what would she call it?

But she does remember the black in his eyes in the supply closet a few weeks ago. How he's spent himself against her stomach and make her scream for him, and then looked into her soul with his dark eyes. How he'd spun darkness between their lips, letting it trickle down her throat until they writhed with the same passion.

"The things I want from you…" His gaze rests somewhere near her knees. "They have no place with the Jedi."

She remembers what Luke Skywalker told her about the Jedi Order — about how it needs to end.

"Maybe you aren't a Jedi," she offers softly.

He looks up at her. "That's what Snoke used to say to me," he says, "when he was seducing me to the Darkness."

Rey swallows. Is that what she's doing? Seducing him to the Darkness? Does she have that kind of power? His eyes drop to her lips before flickering away, and she thinks maybe she does. Over him, at least.

She nods, accepting his terms. He stares at her until she finds the strength to stand and leave the small room off his mother's quarters. She looks back, and finds the plant inching toward him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://lovesbitca8.tumblr.com/) and [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/).


	4. Reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Author's Notes are a funny thing. Because MINE say that this story was supposed to wrap before 12/20. But then the sTrAnGeSt tHiNg HaPpeNeD. 
> 
> Yes, TROS broke me a bit. But I've completed this story. The chapter count has increased to 5. One more after this, and it will post within a week. 
> 
> I love this story, so if you're back reading it after the hiatus, thanks so much. 
> 
> Love to [ KyloTrashForever ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever) and [ monsterleadmehome ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterleadmehome) for looking this over for me.

_There is no emotion, there is peace.  
_ _There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.  
_ _There is no passion, there is serenity._  
_There is no chaos, there is harmony.  
_ _There is no death, there is the Force._

Rey snaps the book shut, blowing out her air.

This isn't a _code_ , it's a poem.

She rubs her neck and opens the journal again.

Whether Kylo knows that she'd asked his mother for books on the Jedi, she couldn't say. He'd been absent at meals for the past week, only appearing at the end to grab the leftover spice cake and muja fruit. In the mornings, she'd been shocked to find Han in the gymnasium with him. She hovered near the door as Han held a bag of sand for his son or shot stunning rays at him while Kylo deflected. She'd leave after a few minutes, but when she returned the next day, they'd be at it again.

Rey runs her fingers down the spine of the old journal in her hands. Reading from a book of paper and ink is a different experience than from her datapad. She sometimes still catches herself tapping the corner of the book to turn the page.

Leia says she doesn't know the Jedi whose journal this is, but that Luke gave it to her years ago. Rey looks through the pages again, finding paragraphs upon paragraphs about each line of the Jedi Code, explanations and meditations.

_The things I want from you…have no place with the Jedi._

She frowns. _Emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, and death._ A month ago she'd thought every one of these words described Kylo Ren — and now he wanted to cut them out of himself in exchange for peace, knowledge, serenity, and harmony.

_But your anger… your hatred for me. And my passion for you… I can taste the Darkness again._

Passion.

Rey flips forward several pages, finding the meditations on passion from this long-dead Jedi.

_I find myself dreaming again — of Myriame. The wish for her arms and her small hands. The hope of my mother's ring on her finger one day. The swell of her belly with our child._

_These are dreams that fade to dust in my meditations. When I remember my commitments to the Jedi, I send a grateful thought to Myriame, and then tuck away my desire for her until I wake the next morning, my body aching for her again._

Rey frowns, reading on to the analysis.

_The union between the man and the Jedi takes precedence over the union between man and wife. How can one serve two masters? If one's heart belongs to another, how can that heart serve the Force? If one's body belongs to a wife, how can that body defend the galaxy from the Darkness? There are no attachments greater than the Jedi._

Rey blinks. No attachments. The heart and body must belong to Jedi. She feels a chill crest over her.

She had wondered about the training, about the Jedi mindset. She'd wanted those things once — while on her way to Skywalker on the _Falcon_. Because she had the Force, and of course she would be a Jedi.

But now… she's had a taste of the passion that the Jedi forbid. She's felt pleasure rising in her, breaking over her body. She's had lewd and delicious things done to her cunt, awakening a need. A need to be filled and made whole with another person.

And the Jedi won't allow it.

She snaps the book closed, pondering. What did the Dark Side allow? Surely Kylo had tasted it, had had his fill of pleasures with another body.

Rey sniffs. Of _course_ he could give up passion and chaos. He'd already _had_ it.

~*~

He's finally alone in the gymnasium the next morning. She knew he would be — Han hurt his back yesterday. He pauses when she enters, the practice saber he's twirling spins wildly, but she can feel a hitch in his breath.

Eyes on his back, she moves to the weapon wall, pulling down the staff. She sets up the droid and finishes her first round before speaking.

"I've read the Jedi Code."

He continues his assault on the hologram. There's a change in him from before. His movements are smoother, less feral. He anticipates the training session instead of reacting in wild, animalistic defense.

Not chaos, harmony.

She doesn't think he'll respond, and maybe that's for the best. Maybe they can just coexist, and the burn in her belly and the clawing at her chest will fade—

"And?"

He's wiping the sweat from his neck, and her eyes catch on the movement before turning back to her droid.

"I don't agree with all of it," she says. "But now I know what you're aiming to accomplish."

He's quiet. She turns back to the droid, spinning the practice saber around her wrist like she's seen him do. She finishes another round with the droid, taking it to its highest setting.

She feels him. Like he's standing in a doorway, waiting for her permission to enter. Inside her mind, hovering. When she turns to look at him, his focus is on the dummy.

~*~

"You said you could teach me," she says one morning when it's just the two of them again. "The quick, slashy thing."

She demonstrates the brief flash of the form he'd passed from his mind to her before she had gone to Ahch-To, swinging her saber wildly. He watches her, and she could swear the corner of his lips lift.

"Ataru," he offers. "It's the fourth form."

"You can teach me? Ataru and the other forms?"

She feels a pleasant humming in her veins, a buzzing of possibility. Perhaps he will have to place his hands on her body. Perhaps she will fail to learn it right the first time, and he will have to adjust her posture with his large hands.

His eyes slip over her waist, dropping quickly to her long legs — just like they used to — she hushes the part of her that whimpers inside at the idea of holding his full attention again.

His eyes snap away from her, down to the practice saber in his hand.

"I can open my mind again, if you'd like," he says. "You can see the techniques. And try to adapt—"

"Why can't you show me? Teach me?"

A muscle in his jaw jumps. He still stares down at his own hand, like it holds all the answers. "That's not a good idea."

Rey presses her lips together, keeping herself from biting out something too telling.

She grumbles out, "You're the only one who gets to be a Jedi?"

His eyes slide up to hers again, and he swallows. "I shouldn't teach. I am no Jedi master."

"It's just lightsaber forms," she whispers. Her heart beats faster. "You were going to teach me before. Practically begging me to let you."

He turns away from her abruptly. He twists his saber through the air, like taking a deep pull of air when you can't breathe. "I wanted too much. Before."

Rage bubbles inside of her. She's ready to snarl at him, to remind him of the things they're capable of, the way their bodies can connect—

And inside of her head, she hears a whisper, being sent from his consciousness into hers: _There is no emotion, there is peace._

"Don't," she hisses. "Don't tell me to calm down."

She throws her practice saber at him. He dodges it with a tilt of his neck, eyes still downcast, refusing to look at her.

She marches out the doors, and fumes all the way to her bunk, tossing herself down and sobbing into her pillow, screaming when the tears won't stop.

~*~

There's an air raid on the new Resistance base three days later. They lose Snap immediately. Rey watches in horror as his X-wing goes down, just as she's about to jump into one herself.

Poe is screaming over the comms, and Finn is pulling Rose back from running after her sister.

She hears Finn yell her name as she climbs up into the cockpit. Half of the base is jumping into escape shuttles and the other half is in the air, taking on the TIE fighters. She'd be no good on a shuttle. And she's spent enough of her life waiting.

There's a hand on her ankle before she can pull it into the cockpit, and she looks down to see Kylo climbing up after her.

"Stop. Come with me."

"Go! Protect your mother!"

"The fleet is dead in the water," he hisses. "We have to evacuate."

"Such optimism," she snarls, tugging her ankle free.

She doesn't remember the world going black. Just a brick wall in her mind, sending her straight to sleep, just as it did once before in a lush forest.

The black dissipates as she comes to on a cot in an evacuation shuttle. She jumps up, searching frantically—

Finn is holding a sobbing Rose in a corner. Admiral Holdo stands at the window, brushing away a stray tear.

She takes account of her body, checking for injuries. She's fine. He knocked her out, and abducted her again.

To the thirty grieving people in the shuttle, she stands and screams, " _Where is he?_ "

Holdo turns to her grimly, and nods toward the bridge.

She marches on shaking feet towards a broad back leaning over the navigation center with Commander D'Acy, speaking lowly to his mother's hologram.

"You had _no right_ —"

He holds up a hand to her, not bothering to glance over his shoulder, silencing her like a child. She slaps it away. And only then does he turn an interested gaze to her.

"How _dare you_ knock me out. I am not some _doll_ you can bestow your attention on whenever you choose—"

He grabs her shoulders and walks her into an alcove where he can whisper fiercely, "You were on a suicide mission. You weren't thinking with your head."

"I was trying to _do something_ —"

"Something stupid—"

"Oh excuse my _ignorance_ ," she snarls. "You have _only knowledge_ , isn't that right?"

His hand presses into the wall behind her head, caging her in. "Lower your voice. People are grieving out there. We lost half our bombers."

"Don't tell me what to do." She pants hot air against his face. "You are not my _mentor_. You are not my _lover_. You have no interest in being either, so you are _nothing to me_."

He blinks at her, eyes lowering to her mouth before quickly darting away.

His warmth, his nearness seeps into her body, dragging her downward. She rolls up on her toes, stretching for his lips.

"No," he gasps, pushing her shoulders back into the wall. "We can't."

Her mortification strikes a fire against her skin. Her face is burning when she shoves past him, fanning her warm chest and going back to the cabin to see why Rose is crying.

~*~

Half of the Resistance is gone, including Paige Tico. They have a small memorial for the fallen, and then they pile onto the cruiser and set out for a different system.

Rey dreams of him more. She imagines that he pulled her down from the X-wing and swept her into his arms in a deep kiss while the universe exploded around them. Or that he let her kiss him on the escape shuttle, forgetting his vows to the Jedi as she unbuttoned his trousers.

He has disappeared in the waking hours though. There's a distinct lack of his presence on board the cruiser, as if he's shielding himself from her. She finally decides to go through Leia, feeling guilty for tricking the general's kind heart into thinking Rey cares deeply for her son.

Because that isn't the case at all.

It isn't.

He still meditates in Leia's quarters. Leia mumbles something about having another presence nearby being best for him, so when Rey offers to join him so Leia can work in the Command Center, she is gone in an instant.

Rey stares at the door leading to the side room. She feels his presence as she knows he feels hers, and pushes into the room to find him in the same meditative position facing the windows, his back to her. There are knickknacks and books spinning slowly, rotating as one with his meditations.

He says nothing when she plops down in front of him, folding her legs like Skywalker taught her. He stares at her, eyes sweeping over her face, dropping low to her waist before meeting her eyes again.

"Explain to me why the Jedi cannot have sexual relations," she says, voice strong and prodding.

His eyes flicker once before recovering. A muscle in his jaw tenses. She already knows the answer, but just needs to hear him say it.

"The Jedi cannot form attachments."

"I know of several people on board this cruiser who share beds without 'attachments.'" She lifts a brow to him in challenge.

He nods. "It's more than that. It's selfish. It's taking instead of offering," he says, and his excuses start to flow faster through him. "It's inciting a yearning in your life that does not serve the Force or the galaxy. The Jedi should _give_ and offer themselves…" He swallows down his words and settles on, "Seeking pleasure through someone else's body can lead to other urges, other passions."

"What about seeking pleasure through your own body?" she rasps.

He swallows again, and she pushes against his walls, trying to find any memories slipping through the cracks, searching for his cock in his hand and her name on his lips.

His defenses are strong today.

"It is also discouraged."

"Discouraged, but not forbidden?"

"Rey—"

"I'm not sure I buy into the Jedi Code," she says. "Skywalker himself told me the Jedi must end."

Kylo shakes his head, muttering, "He will change his mind when I return to him."

"I think he sees the flaws. I think he would agree that the Jedi Code is unsustainable. To live a life without passion—"

"No one is asking you to join the Jedi, Rey." His voice is firm but tired. He can't look at her, focusing on a spot between their knees.

"Good. Because I don't agree to a life without attachments." She feels her heart racing, leading him right where she wants him. "I want to have sexual relations. My body craves it."

There is a pause, and then he whispers, "Then that is your choice."

Rey's fingers curl into fists on her knees. "So I should find someone who isn't you for that?"

Kylo sits still as stone before slowly nodding at the floor. Rey watches his lips press together, trembling.

"Maybe I will then," she pushes. She's about to open her mind to send him images of herself with faceless men she'll find at cantinas and outposts, letting them tug down her trousers in alleyways—

"Poe thinks you're very beautiful. He's mentioned it many times."

She blinks, wondering why he would change the subject like that. But then she realizes he's offering _suggestions_ for men who are not him.

"I don't want to sleep with Poe."

He nods. "Finn would be kind to you — take care of you. Although, he seems more and more attached to the Tico girl—"

"I don't want someone to take care of me," she snaps. The absolute gall that he would try to suggest someone to scratch the itch he placed on her skin. "I can take care of myself."

His mouth moves, like he's biting words back. "I know you can."

His eyes flip up to her, like a flame swallowing her. It spurs her on, her idea flickering back to life. She wonders how hard she needs to push him before he cracks.

"I'm thinking that all I need is a hard cock," she says loftily. Her eyes lock onto his, challenging him. "Some firm hands to reach the places I can't. The rest, I can do myself. The bouncing and the grinding. It's instinctual, I'm sure."

He swallows, his breath puffing out through his long nose in a coarse rhythm. He tries to ignore how he twitches in his trousers, but she catches it.

"Whoever he is," Rey pushes, whispering, "he really would only have to lie there. He wouldn't have to _take_ anything for himself. He could _give_. Offer himself."

When the words of Jedi Code drip from her lips, his mouth opens on a sharp inhale. His mouth… she wants it again. She feels a sharp spike of arousal puncture his thick walls, pouring through their connection. Rey leans onto her hands, crawling to him.

"No one would have to know," she hums.

He blinks rapidly. "I would know. The Force would know." But his eyes skate over her collarbones, dipping low to her chest.

"It's just us now." Rey climbs into his lap, straddling his thighs. He releases a thick breath that lands across her neck, and she slides her hands over his shoulders. "Please give me this. I need it."

She lowers herself until their hips are touching, and she almost moans to feel how hard he already is.

"You don't have to do anything but hold onto me." She nuzzles against his temple, pressing her lips to his ear. "Just let me have this?" Her voice is thinner than she meant it to be, weaker, and needier.

There are heartbeats between them before she feels his hands place themselves gently on her waist. She sighs in gratitude, and reaches between them for the ties to his trousers.

Her underthings are damp already, but when he squeezes the flesh of her hips, she feels the moisture collect between her thighs. He's breathing raggedly against her neck — his lips brushing innocently along her skin — and she knows he'll change his mind if she lets him think.

Her hand around his cock wrenches a moan from his chest. She does it just like he likes it, and he mumbles something into her clavicle.

She would love to pump him until he breaks into a million pieces, splattering them both with the evidence that he isn't meant to be without her, but her cunt is throbbing, and she wonders if this is a dream he'll wake from.

She's just starting to tug her own trousers over her hips when his lips land on the exposed triangle of skin between her breasts. His face turns to mouth at her breast, and she can feel the desperate movements over her tunic and breastband.

His arms have slid behind her back now, pressing her spine toward him, offering her chest to his greedy mouth. All thoughts have fled her mind as he whines against her breasts, starting to roll his hips upwards against her partially clothed sex.

There's a buzzing in her ears. She slips her fingers through his hair before she opens her eyes, watching all the knickknacks and lamps rattle and spin out of control.

There's an echo too, she realizes, just as his hands slip around her backside and begin to tease her between her legs. Something from far away. It barrels closer and closer like an engine landing, and she can finally make out the cadence of _Yours, all yours_ — repeated like a prayer.

And Kylo's hips move in time with the chant _Yours, all yours._ His mouth almost whispers it into her tunic.

His finger slips inside of her cunt, and Rey clenches around him.

The foreign voice sings, _Take her. Make her yours._

Rey gasps as Kylo strokes inside of her, and before she can make sense of the voice in harmony with Kylo's moaning and her own gasping, she's falling through the air, landing hard on her back against the floor.

He's on top of her, pinning her down with his hips and his chest. It's so close to the way she imagined it — that night when she'd dreamt of that bed with white sheets and the black fire that licked at their bodies as he held her down. His mouth crashes over hers, and her arms wrap around his broad back as he ruts against her. She arches her back as he drags her knee higher up his body.

"Rey…"

_Yours._

His palm lands on her covered breast, groping her roughly, sizzling her insides until she moans.

_Take her._

A lamp shatters.

He peels away her underthings, baring her to him. She writhes under his soft fingers running through her sex.

"No one else, please?" he says into her cheek, and she tugs tightly on his hair in agreement.

She feels him between them, aligning his cock with her, pressing against her entrance.

_Have her. Make her scream._

Rey shudders in delight. She feels like those black flames, growing higher and higher—

_Then return back to me with her. I'll let you keep her._

Rey blinks at the ceiling. A soft blue light blanketing the small room.

It's not Kylo's voice.

It's a darker growl. Someone with a bellowing whisper.

Snoke.

In his head. In _their_ heads.

"Kylo," she breathes, trying to pause him.

He's pressing a sweet kiss to her jaw. He's pushing forward in a way that she wouldn't describe as "taking" anything. He's shaking with the way he holds himself back.

"Let me love you? Please?" he murmurs into her neck, the tip of his cock pressing inside, the rest of him waiting for her signal—

"Ben, stop," she demands.

He pulls back to look at her. He looks young. His body trembling.

"Snoke wants you to bring me to him?" she asks, heart pounding as her pleasure fades to horror.

He shakes his head, eyes still dazed. "But I won't. I won't let him hurt you."

Through her own fear, Rey feels the panic and terror in the Force at the moment he realizes she's heard Snoke's call to him.

His eyes widen. His body springs away from her, leaning back on his knees. The blood drains from his face as he looks down on her.

Rey is exposed, flayed open, invaded by a presence that isn't the one she yearned for. She closes her knees and reaches for her trousers.

"I would never," he vows. "Anything Snoke has demanded of me has no bearing on my feel— on what we've done together."

Her trousers pull slowly over her hips. She wants to believe him. She's seen more of Han Solo's son in these moments with her than she's seen of the Jedi Killer.

But now, there's a manifestation of what he's talking about. The _passion_ for her that has let the darkness back inside of himself. The black flames…

"He talks to me," Kylo is stuttering, still explaining himself. "But I am blocking him out. I _am_ trying. I didn't tell him about you, Rey, please—"

She stands, tugging her tunic back into place. He blocks Snoke out, but still something seduces him to the darkness.

_She's_ the problem.

"Right," she says shortly. "I won't—I won't bother you again, Kylo Ren."

Walking out on shaking legs, she steps around shattered glass and pages of books that destroyed themselves while he spun out of control at the temptation of being inside of her.

The _chaos_ they made.

~*~

She can't sleep for hours, staring at the ceiling and wondering if Snoke will try to speak to her as well. If one day she'll hear his voice, telling her to do things, demanding that she bring Kylo Ren to him.

She doesn't have roommates anymore. With half of them gone, she has her own room with three other empty cots, but when she wakes from fitful sleep, it's with the memory of a lovely dream. Something sleepy and warm. Her arm around a thick waist, and clean-smelling skin beneath her lips. She can still feel the rise and fall of a chest against her cheek, and her face nuzzles against her pillow, loving the peace, the safety — like nothing she's known in a cot before.

A breeze disturbs her hair, and her eyes snap open, feeling the warmth of her pillow transform into a pale expanse of skin under her.

She's wrapped herself around a body in her sleep. A male body…

She struggles to catch her breath, muscles stiff and unmoving in her panic. Her arm is around his wide torso, her banded breasts pressing into his ribs. Her face is tucked into his shoulder and her knee slung over his hips.

It's just like the island, when he'd wrapped himself around her in sleep.

She sits up slowly, ready to shove him awake and demand he project himself _out_ of her quarters. But when she looks down on him, his eyes are open and on the ceiling. His hands at his sides and his breath controlled and slow.

She's not in her own quarters. She's arrived in his.

She slides away from him, panic in her veins. She's never slept with another person in her bed before. She isn't a _snuggler_. She couldn't be.

But it wasn't _his_ arms around _her_. She had been the needy one this time.

He swallows, and doesn't look away from the ceiling.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I wasn't… I didn't do this on purpose."

He nods, eyes never dropping to her. "Alright."

Her vision tremors, and she can see her own room in alignment with his. She can see how she is propped on her own cot just as she is on his.

She's fading back to her own room, but she fights it as long as she can, entranced by the way the sheets fall low on his hips, a bulge in between his legs. Her eyes drink in his body like a thirst that cannot be sated, and when her own arousal spikes, she knows he feels it in the Force. His cock twitches under the sheets.

Abruptly, he turns on his side, curling over, and whispers, "Good night, Rey."

She stares at his broad back, memorizing the scars until he fades out of sight. She's back in her own room. Alone.

She's warm and blushing, trying to figure out how it had happened. _Why_ it had happened.

But she also wonders about the large bed with white sheets he'd dreamed of. The one he wanted to lay her out on while he worshipped her cunt with his lips and fingers.

She'd assumed it was in his quarters.

Turning over and trying to calm her body, trying to avoid touching herself, she wonders where that bed is.

~*~

It's not the last time she's in his cot with him upon waking. She tries to avoid sleep after the second night it happens, but when sleep finally takes her, it carries her across a silver thread to him.

Every time, she wakes up, apologizes, and lets herself fade back. And every time, he's awake, staring at the ceiling, or curled away from her as she removes her arms from around his waist. He wears pajamas to bed now, never again naked when they wake up.

One evening, her skin is burning, her lips are mouthing at his neck, her hips are grinding against his thigh. She's mortified upon waking, but he's awake staring at the ceiling, a flush across his entire body. His cock is hard against her thigh, but his hands are firmly folded behind his head.

She gasps, jumping away from him. She turns around to sit on the edge of their shared cot, and waits. It takes longer than usual for the Force to let her fade back. After several minutes of quieting her racing heart, she looks back at him.

He's staring resolutely up at the ceiling, waiting for her to leave. His cock is twitching, tenting the front of his sleeping clothes. A pleasant spinning in her stomach tugs at her. How hard he is just from being this close to her. How he's beginning to leak into his pajama bottoms. And she wonders how long it takes him to give in and fist himself after she leaves.

"I can help you," she whispers breathlessly. "I can…"

Her hand reaches for him, and when he doesn't stop her immediately, her fingers shift across his stomach and dip into his waistband.

He huffs out a breath when she wraps around him, his hands slide out of his hair and around to cover his face.

"Rey—"

She moves quickly, licking her other palm and tugging at his waistline until she's pulled him free. Her hand strokes him, and he shudders out a breath.

"It's going to be quick," she promises.

He doesn't move, doesn't breathe. She squeezes him and his thighs clench. She shifts until she's between his legs, staring down at the part of him she won't ever have. She can give him this. She takes so much from him every morning with arms wound tightly and lips searching for his in the night.

His cock is weeping, twitching under her hand. The Holovids come back to her, the thing that all human males enjoy sweeps into her mind, and before she can overthink, she's bending to press the tip of him inside of her mouth.

He cries out, hands snapping to her hair, tugging her away and pulling her mouth down on him simultaneously until she's just frozen in place.

"Rey, don't—" he groans, but she's already moving her tongue around him, and then he's coming, jerking into her mouth, spurting to the back of her throat, tugging at her scalp with a strangled yell.

She swallows and swallows, trying to give him what he wants, sucking at him until he's shaking.

When her lips pop off of him and she finally looks at him through her bleary eyes, he's thrown one arm over his face, breathing harshly into his elbow, taking shuddering breaths.

"It's okay," she says throatily. "You didn't take anything. I wanted to give. You're still a Jedi—"

A sob wrenches from his throat, and she blinks as his chest shakes.

"Why are you doing this to me?" His voice is muffled by his arm, but she hears him clearly.

Her face falls, listening to him take a rattling inhale. She can still taste him on her tongue when she says, "Doing what?"

He rubs his face, letting his arm fall away. And just before he turns over, she sees his red face, his wet eyes.

"Please stop, Rey. Please. You've made your point." He heaves in air and she sits in horror. "I can't be good. I'll always be him. I know."

"What?" she begs, reaching forward. She wants to hold him, but the idea is so strange to her. He's so much larger than she is.

His voice is thick. "I'll leave. I'll leave tomorrow if that's what you want."

"I don't understand." Panic grabs her chest at the idea of him leaving. "You don't have to go anywhere."

He sits up and turns his body to her. "What do I have to do to make you stop this? To stop haunting my bed."

She feels like she's been struck by one of the droid's laser bolts. "I… I'm not doing this on purpose. The Force is connecting us. Just like it connected us when I was on Ahch-To and you were with the Resistance. I'm not—"

"It brought me to you because I wanted to be close to you, to know where you were, what you were doing, how you were sleeping." He snarls the words, and she finds herself devastated by the anger in his voice. " _So what do you want from me?_ "

She's overwhelmed by the hatred in his tone, in his face. But her heart pounds with the truth behind his words. The way she's wondered where he is when he's not in the mess hall. The guilt she feels when she knows he's not sleeping because of her.

The way she wanted to pleasure him just now, more than she wanted anything else.

She stares at him, her eyes blinking quickly, like trying to banish the sight of his fury.

"I… don't want anything from you," she lies.

His eyes are black and terrible when he hisses, "Get out. Get out of my bed, before you finally succeed." She feels small as an energy crackles around him, like black fire. "Is that what you want? I can show you the Dark Side," he growls, his eyes dark and vicious.

She snaps out of his bedroom, her reality crashing back to her own room. She shivers in the lonely coldness, listening to her ragged breath.

She can still taste him in her mouth. Jumping up for the 'fresher, she cleans her teeth, ruminating on his hot anger and the way he blamed her for teasing him, for provoking him. Her tears join the water in the sink as she tries to calm her heartbeat. Her reflection stares back at her: a stupid girl, playing with fire.

~*~

The Knights of Ren find them on a forest planet a week later. They ambush the scouting team, destroying the radar signals for the Resistance. Rey hasn't seen Kylo Ren since he kicked her out of his bed, so when she spots him entering the forest with only a blaster, her mind goes blank.

"Rey!"

She spins and Leia is there, leading command on the evacuation before the First Order catches us.

"Take the lightsaber!" Leia points down at the saber that hangs off Rey's belt, dormant for months.

Rey runs for the forest, following the sounds of lasers and the smoke and fallen trees. They're not far in. He is fighting six men with heavy metal armor. He's brawling with them, even as they slash him with vibroblades. She sees him dance, moving his feet and twisting his body out of the way. It's the Jedi. It's Ataru. It's all the things he's been studying.

But underneath it all, she sees a smuggler's son, not a Dark-sider.

"Ben!" she screams, lifting the lightsaber to throw to him.

He flips one of them over his shoulder and when he turns to her, his hand is up, halting her. She pauses. Two of the Knights of Ren turn towards her and advance. Her eyes widen and she ignites the saber.

She engages with them, calling upon the Force to guide her. One of them never makes it to the edge of the forest, shot down by a bolt in the back. She spares a glance to Kylo as he lowers the blaster, and is immediately knocked to the ground by the largest of them.

Rey panics, slashing wildly at the one Knight she is left with. He has a vibroblade that clashes angrily with her saber, and she finds herself cornered against a copse of trees sooner than she'd like. She swings and parries, ducking and rolling. She's on her knees, trying to remember anything she can, begging Ben to open his mind so she can learn from him. The Knight over her is striking down as she holds her saber above her head, blocking.

He lifts his vibroblade again, and two large hands appear on either side of his neck, twisting his head swiftly to an unnatural angle. Rey watches as the vibroblade is snatched from his lifeless hands, and the body flung to the side. She catches Ben's eyes for a heartbeat before a blaster bolt catches him in the side.

He falls to one knee, holding his side, wincing in pain. Rey deflects the rest of the bolts coming at them with the saber.

"Go," he says. "Tell them to go."

She stares at him in horror. "I'm not leaving you alone with them."

And she hears how it sounds once it's out of her mouth, like she doesn't _trust him_ alone with his old gang.

He glares at her, grabs the saber, and shoves her with the Force, sending her flying through the woods and out into the clearing. She screams, and falls into a deep sleep before landing softly on the grass.

~*~

She wakes in the co-pilot seat of the _Falcon._ She jerks into consciousness, and Chewie is there beside her with a low growl of hello.

"Did we make it?" she says, looking at the hyperspace around her. "Did he—Are we all alive?"

Chewie barks out that the Knights are dead. The Resistance made it out before the First Order arrived. Han is on one of the shuttles, watching over Ben who is getting mended.

She's about to ask what "mended" means, but Chewie asks for her help with navigation. She puts on her headset, and is assaulted by the pilots' voices. She's on the frequency for their chatter. It takes her a minute to figure out that they are all talking about Ben Solo taking on six Knights of Ren by himself.

"I've never put much faith in the Jedi but _wow!_ "

"—never seen anything like it—"

"Gotta get me a lightsaber. How many credits do you think?"

"—that's Han Solo's son! One hundred percent!"

"Well, and he has _Skywalker_ blood. Of course, he's a beast."

Rey listens as they yammer. He must not be close to death if they are celebrating his success like this. But maybe he wouldn't be hurt at all if he'd let her help. If he wasn't so dead set against her joining the fray.

She closes her eyes, listening to the noise. He wouldn't have been shot in the side if he'd let her handle the Knight by herself. He'd broken his neck with his bare hands. Certainly not a Jedi move. She'd been capable of handling her opponent, but Kylo Ren had come in with his passion and his chaos and had protected her.

She wonders if Snoke was speaking to him now. If he'd let in the darkness again.

"—and those were _Kylo Ren's Knights!_ Can you imagine what kind of power we'd have had against Ren if we had Ben Solo with us?"

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: Kylo Ren was defeated the day that Ben Solo escaped captivity? It _can't_ be a coincidence. I think Ben Solo _slayed_ him before getting out—"

She's pressing the button on her comm before her mind catches up. "You're all idiots. His fighting style? His flying? _He is Kylo Ren_."

The comms are silent. She releases her Talk button, her eyes widening, her fingers shaking.

"Rey?" Poe's voice calls out in her ear.

She yanks her headset off and stares out into hyperspace.

What did she just do?

A low rumble from next to her. She turns to find Chewie's eyes, pained and wary.

Rey jumps up, and runs for the back of the ship. She slips into the gunner positions, and curls up, dropping her head into her hands and tugging at her hair for the rest of the flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fifth and final chapter will post within the next week. It is already written.
> 
> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://lovesbitca8.tumblr.com/) and [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/).


	5. Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy to share the conclusion of this story with you! When I started planning this, it was going to be a 10k onehshot. Then it became 3-chapters. Now here we are. I'm so glad you came along on this ride. 
> 
> Love to [ KyloTrashForever ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever) and [ monsterleadmehome ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monsterleadmehome) for looking this over for me.

Han finds her once they land. The _Falcon_ has been docked for half an hour, but Chewie doesn't bother her as he lands the ship himself.

She hears footsteps on the grate, old joints creaking down the ladder. She's still curled up in the gunner's seat, staring at the _Raddus's_ hangar as the pilots land their X-wings.

"Hey, kid."

It breaks inside of her — the sting of his rejection, her battle to continue being good when the darkness calls her. The pain of her misstep earlier.

Her face crumples, and she sobs into her hand.

Han's palm drops onto her shoulder, and she shudders, struggling to catch her breath under the weight of it.

"It's not your fault, Rey," he says. "We asked you to keep a secret. A big one. We shouldn't have done that."

She wipes her eyes and sniffs. It's tight quarters down here, so Han is hovering right over her, his presence a constant reminder of her mistake as they both stare out the viewport at the crew working.

"I wanted to hurt him for so long," Rey admits. "When he interrogated me, I'd never felt that kind of openness and pain." She ran her sleeve across her nose. "And the way he would look at me…" She stops herself. No need to discuss _that_ with his father. "I just think it's been building up inside for so long. I snapped. I'm sorry."

Han clears his throat. "I think you, uh… the two of you know how to hurt each other too well. He told me you… uh, started a relationship of a"—he coughs—"sexual nature…"

Rey's eyes pop, and her cheeks burn red. If this is what she missed by not having a father, she's almost happy for it.

"And um, while I think that… war can create a lot of… intimacies—"

"You don't have to do this."

"Alright, thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"Sure."

"No, like, _don't mention it_."

Han clears his throat. And she hears him run a hand through his hair like his son does.

"The point I wanted to make, is that he likes you," Han says. And Rey feels something warm and deep bloom in her belly. "But maybe you're on different paths," he finishes.

Rey blinks. A group of pilots talk in a clump in the corner of the hangar and she watches them.

She doesn't like the sound of that. A different path. Her chest feels tight, thinking that their lives will split at some point, possibly soon.

"I need to take him away for a while." Han sighs. "It's not your fault, but… the Resistance isn't happy to hear about Ben, about who he was before. He's not going to be welcomed here for a while."

"Where are you going?" she asks, and she watches Poe through the viewport, speaking conspiratorially to the pilots.

"Maybe Naboo. Leia's mother was from there. Just some place where Snoke can't get into his head so easily."

"He wanted to go to Ahch-To. He wanted to make amends with Luke." She twists to look at Han for the first time. He's frowning.

"Yeah. Maybe one day." He stares out the viewport, and Rey knows he's watching the pilots too. "We're leaving tomorrow night, once he's out of the med bay," he says.

Rey feels her stomach drop. _Different paths_.

She almost asks if she can come with them, but then remembers _she_ is the thing they are escaping from.

"Alright." Her voice is tight. She blinks back a new wave of tears.

"It's what we should have done when he first came home." Han takes a deep breath. "I thought being with Leia would have helped him. And maybe it did. But he and I should have gone away."

Rey nods. She can see it.

"How are his injuries?"

~*~

Rey's never seen a bacta tank before. It's fascinating.

His body floats in the liquid, a bubble around him. She asks the droids about his injuries, and they beep back to her about a concussion, a blaster bolt to his side, a broken foot, a dislocated kneecap—

Rey silences them, unable to hear any more. She watches him float, his hair a living thing in the bacta. When she finally turns to leave after almost an hour, she finds Poe standing outside the room, watching them through the window.

She exits and comes to stand by him.

"You knew?" he says. "The whole time?"

Rey nods. The silence hangs thick.

"We were friends as kids, you know. We used to play together. I knew he didn't like me much, but I…" Poe trails off and rubs a hand down his face. "It was like he didn't even know me. When I was strapped to that rack. The pain he put me through. Was it like that for you?"

Rey swallows. "No. It was uncomfortable. But not like that."

Poe places his fist on the glass and leans his forehead on it. "How could Leia do this to us? To me and you." She looked over at him. "And to the Resistance. How stupid—" He cuts himself off. "It's so dangerous to have him here, without truly knowing his intentions."

"His intentions were pure," she says. "He wanted to help. He wanted to defeat Snoke."

Poe doesn't respond. He just stares at Kylo Ren floating in bacta.

"Han is leaving with him tomorrow," Rey says, thinking maybe it will give Poe peace of mind.

"Good," he says, straightening. "Because if I ever run into him again, I'll put a blaster bolt in his head."

Poe turns and walks down the hall, out of sight.

~*~

Rey wakes in the middle of the night with a sudden need. She bolts up in bed and looks around. Nothing is out of place. She is alone. She checks the clock. It's the middle of the night cycle.

She jumps out of bed and reaches out with the Force. There's something… something she needs to be doing. She tugs on her tunic and boots. At the last second, she reaches for the lightsaber, and clips it to her belt.

The Force leads her to the hangar. And she finds the ramp of the _Falcon_ open. A tall figure limps up the ramp, carrying a crate of provisions, enough to last months.

Her heart pounds as she runs to the _Falcon_. They're leaving early? It wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow.

But as she comes closer, she sees only one pack at the base of the ramp, filled up with bacta patches. She searches the Force, and only finds one presence on board the ship.

He appears at the top of the ramp, pushing his clean, bacta-washed hair away from his face. He has a brace around his left knee, and a boot around his right foot. It's clear that he shouldn't be up and about yet. At least another day in the bacta tank would have him fully healed.

He stops at the sight of her.

"Where are you going?"

His lips press together. "Away."

"You're not waiting for your father?"

"He should stay. I split them up once before." He looks away from her. "They should be together even if I can't be here."

She doesn't know what to say to that. She's never had that option.

"He's not going to like that you're taking the _Falcon_ ," she says lightly, a small smile on her lips.

He shrugs. "If I steal his ship, he won't be able to go after me right away."

He starts down the ramp for the rest of his things, but she swoops them up, and carries them up the ramp for him. She squeezes past him, careful not to knock his knee.

She drops his pack on the couch, and moves into the cockpit before she can think too much about it.

"Where are you headed?" she calls back to him. She plops into the pilot's chair starting the engines and opening the navigational system. "Ahch-To?"

His boot clunks into the cockpit. "Rey—"

"Or Naboo? Your grandmother's from there?"

"I—I don't know yet. Rey—"

"I can set you a course for Ahch-To. That way you have it when you decide—"

"I can do that myself. What are you doing?"

She takes a shaking breath, staring down at the console. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I told them."

He sighs. "It was bound to happen. Good things don't last."

She frowns, thinking of the way he'd made friends with Poe and the pilots. The way they'd hugged him when he took out those TIE fighters single-handedly.

"I need to leave now, before they wake up."

She nods. She stands and drops herself into the co-pilot chair, reaching for the switch to bring up the ramp. She can't look at him.

"Rey."

She wonders how badly she will miss Finn… If she'll regret not saying goodbye to him.

"Rey," he repeats. "You're not coming with me."

"You need a co-pilot," she says, voice pitched high and shaking. She reaches for the headset.

"I don't need a babysitter," he snarls. "I'm not going to Snoke."

"I know you're not." She contacts the droids in charge of opening the hangar.

"You don't have to monitor me."

"I know." Her lip trembles.

"Get off the ship, Rey—"

Her chest cracks in two, and she sobs out, "Don't leave me here. Please, don't leave me." She inhales quickly before bursting out into another sob, her shoulders shaking.

She can't look at him. Can't see him glare at her when she's crying. Maybe he's pleased with himself for finally breaking her.

His mind is closed to her, but she's throwing herself at the gates, begging him to listen to her.

"Everyone leaves me. Please, don't."

She sniffs and listens to him sit in the pilot's chair. She watches the way his dislocated leg straightens out.

"Your place is with the Resistance, Rey." His voice is low and silky, and she misses the way he would whisper her name into her ear just before he came.

She looks over at him finally, and he's looking out the front viewport at the open universe.

"And where is your place?"

His mouth opens, shuts, and then he shrugs. "I'll find out."

She turns her body to him. "I'll help you. You don't have to be alone."

He swallows, and looks over at her. He's so handsome in the dim lighting, the stars staring back at them.

"Why?" he asks.

Her skin feels warm and her cheeks are buzzing. She repeats his words back to him: "Because I want to be close to you. I want to know where you are, what you're doing, how you're sleeping."

His eyes are confused and he's breathing quickly. A thousand different emotions and unsaid works flicker across his eyes and his mouth. He looks out at the stars and — swiftly, as if he'll second guess himself — he starts the take off sequence, flipping switches and pressing buttons.

She straps in and assists, her heart pounding.

He sets a course for nowhere. Just out of the star system. The fuel is enough to get them around for a few days without stopping. They don't have to plan yet.

The _Falcon_ sails into space, stars flashing by them, and Rey thinks that Han won't be very angry if she's with him.

They're quiet for an hour, steering themselves through an asteroid field. He flies like his father, and Rey smiles when he takes tight turns and elusive shortcuts.

When he sets the _Falcon_ on autopilot, she asks, "Do you still plan to go back to Luke?"

He nods, but his eyes are concentrated, deciding. "One day. I haven't decided yet if it's before or after I kill Snoke."

Rey's lips part. A warmth spreads through her chest, hearing his conviction. She bites the inside of her cheek, thinking.

"Is Snoke in your head now? Is he here because I'm here?"

He shakes his head quickly. "No. No, it's not you, Rey. It's… me." He looks over at her, and his eyes trace down her face. "It's the way I want you."

She feels something twisting low inside of her, but she separates it from the darkness. It's not dark. It's not bad.

"How do you want me?" she asks, a challenge in her lifted brow.

His eyes darken, and his breath is shallow. "Every way."

She swallows. The ache between her thighs is burning. "Does it have to lead to the Dark Side? Because the ways that I want _you_ ," she says, and she watches as his eyes flicker over her, "it doesn't always feel dark."

He's breathing like he's running after her, and she feels like maybe they're meeting in the middle somewhere because he says, "I guess not."

"Is there darkness now?" she asks.

He shakes his head, no.

Rey stands, and his eyes watch as she slithers over to him, sliding into his lap, her legs straddling his knees carefully. "Now?"

"No," he rasps. His eyes trace down her body, drinking her in.

She pushes her fingers through his hair, and he leans into her touch.

"Do you still want to be a Jedi?" she asks, trying to keep any suggestion out of her question.

"I don't know." He's looking at her lips, and she can't help but wet them with her tongue. His hands drop lightly on her hips.

"We don't have to be," she whispers. "You don't need to be a Jedi to kill Snoke. You don't need to be a Jedi to see your uncle again." Her hand moves to his cheek. "You can just be… Ben."

His gaze shifts from her mouth to her eyes. She's almost afraid she's said the wrong thing, but then he smiles. It tugs at his cheeks, and his eyes crinkle.

Rey leans into kiss it off of him, smiling into him as well. His lips part under hers, and she slips into his mouth. He moans.

Her arms wrap around his neck, and she pulls herself closer to him. His fingers slide around her ribs, almost encompassing her entire ribcage.

She pulls her lips away and whispers, "Is this okay?" He nods quickly, reaching for her lips again. "You'll tell me if the darkness calls for you?"

"Yes." He cups her checks and pulls her down to him again. His tongue is lacing through her mouth and his fingers curling into her hair. "He won't hurt you. I won't let him."

Rey smiles into him. Her hands slide down his chest, running over the pale muscles she knows are under his sweater.

He's driving her mad with his mouth, kissing her with an earnest passion and taking his time with bruising her lips. Every moan he wrenches from her throat pulls her tighter against him. His hands in her hair hold her still, as he laps at her.

She widens her hips as much as she can and presses their bodies together. He groans into her mouth, but his fingers don't leave her hair, holding her still as he continues his slow, drugging assault on her mouth. She starts rolling her hips against him, begging him to give her something. Her hands wander down, tugging up his sweater, and he almost doesn't separate from her to let her tug it off.

Before she can look down to examine the wound in his side, he's grabbing for her again.

"Ben," she stops him. "I need you to touch me. I—I need—"

His hands drop to her waist, and he's not even touching skin but she feels relief and warmth and pleasure coursing through her. Her head drops to his bare shoulder, and she begins kissing him there in thanks.

He pulls at her tunic until they can toss it aside, and when his hands run up her spine to her breastband, she moans. They fumble with her trousers until she finally stands and shucks them off. She sees the bacta patch across his side.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, standing between his knees and the console. "Are you comfortable?"

When he doesn't respond, she looks up to find his eyes staring at her body as if he's not seen it before.

"Ben."

He looks up, blinking, trying to remember what she'd asked.

"Is this the best… position… for your injuries?"

He takes a deep breath, and she notices his cock twitch. "Yes, it's"—he clears his throat—"it's fine."

She reaches for his belt, and he pulls her face back to his, content to kiss her to distraction again. It takes far longer than she'd like to admit to unbuckle and open his trousers, but she slides into his lap once she's finally pulled him out.

Her bare thighs slide against his, and she kisses down his neck, sucking softly at his jaw and under his ear. His hands squeeze her hips, rubbing her backside and slipping his fingers through her wetness.

Rey sighs. He rubs her clit with soft, slow fingers, until she bites his ear and begs, "Ben, please."

One finger slides inside of her swiftly, and she groans into his neck. His other hand plays with her clit, and her head lolls back, eyes rolling towards the ceiling. He takes the opportunity to suck at her neck, lapping and scraping against her. Her hips start rolling back against his hand until he pushes in a second finger and she quivers.

"Too much?" he whispers.

And she thinks of the size of him. Of what she wants inside of her next. She squeezes his fingers and shakes her head.

He redoubles his efforts on her clit, rubbing and swirling and flicking. His fingers slide in and out and he twists them to curl inside of her. Her vision goes white. She realizes she's been moaning and panting, writhing on him.

She pulls back to look at him, feeling her pleasure peak until she can't believe there's more of it.

He watches her face with the deepest of concentration as his fingers work her.

Her toes curl, her legs seizing. "Ben—" Her eyes close, her breath catches, and she's tumbling down, down, down. A tailspin of desire. Her body shakes and her ribs rattle.

She opens her eyes and finds him staring at her, his fingers working her down slowly. She feels dizzy with it.

"That didn't feel dark to me," she says. "You're fine?"

He nods, his lips trembling with every exhale. She looks down to his cock, hard and proud against his stomach.

"I want you… inside." She bites her lip shyly. "Is that going to be alright?"

"Yes," he croaks immediately. "Yes."

She kisses him and shifts forward. His lips open, and when her tongue slides against his, his hands jump to her thighs. He pulls her forward, helping her over him. She's still kissing him when his cock presses at her entrance, and only when he starts to fill her does she stop, mouth open in a silent cry of surprise.

She gasps, shifting down on him, lower and lower. She cries out when she keeps sliding down his cock as it spreads her wide. Her lap finally meets his, and then he's fully inside of her.

She can't breathe. She takes shallow breaths, trying to accommodate him inside of her body.

It's nothing like his fingers.

Pulling back to see his face, his eyes are half-closed, looking dazed. Is this what he imagined? When he looked at her in the forest on Takodana, in the _Falcon_ leaving Starkiller, in the gymnasium, in the mess hall? When he had his arms wrapped around her and his hips jerking against her backside when she was on Ahch-To… is this what he wanted?

"Is this okay?" she asks.

When he meets her eyes, the glaze leaves him, and he nods. "It's perfect. The most perfect—" He presses his lips together, and his head drops back against the chair. "Fuck."

She threads her fingers in his hair. "I don't know what to do next. How do I move?"

Her heart is going to explode out of her chest. She tries to shift forward but it's no use.

"I can… Can I help you?" His eyes are laser-focused on her.

She nods, and in heartbeat his hands are on her ribs. His arms ripple with tension as he lifts her off of his cock slowly, only to slide her back down.

Her mouth falls open, and her throat squeaks.

He's hissing and panting and doing it over and over. Her hands land on his shoulders, and he heaves in air as he bounces her on his cock. Her nails dig into his skin. When she looks down on him, he's watching her breasts move, still hidden by her breastband.

"Can I…" he begins. She reaches around herself for the tucked fabric. She unwinds herself, and he drops her on his cock, one hand moving to her clit again.

Her legs feel tight. She's barely started unwrapping the fabric when her cunt flutters. She covers her mouth and squeezes her eyes closed. Her hips are tense and unfulfilled as Ben rubs her quickly, his air panting against her chest. His free hand slides over her waist, touching her, soothing her.

His thumb presses down hard on her clit and she cries out, her cunt starting to grip his cock.

"Oh, fuck—" he gasps out, and she's fluttering, squeezing, nowhere to go—

She calls out his name and his hands are on her hips, slipping her forward and fucking himself with her body.

He stills, breathing hard, and she's coming down, sighing softly and moaning every time her cunt tries to clutch him again.

His hands on are on her breastband then, ripping and tugging. She looks down and checks his eyes. Black, but not dangerous. She bites her lip when he pulls away the fabric, and watches his eyes drink in her small breasts. Smaller than she's seen in his imagination.

His cock twitches inside of her. She gasps, almost laughing at him. And then he's leaning forward and wrapping his lips around one of her breasts. She groans out his name.

One hand presses on her back, pushing her forward into his mouth, and he begins to rut up into her. His other hand is at her other breast, and she's helpless to do anything as he fucks her and sucks at her. The sounds he makes with his mouth around her nipple are sinful, and she plays with his hair and scratches at his shoulders.

His hips start jerking against her, and his throat growls, and his teeth scrape her breast.

His fingers find her clit again.

"Oh! Ben, you don't have to—"

He sucks _hard_ at her breast, and suddenly her body is shaking, tremoring around him. She's so close, starting to tense around his cock as he jerks into her.

He pulls back, grabs her face, and opens the link between their minds.

His pleasure rushes into her body, the feeling of her, the way she completes him. What it feels like to finally be inside.

It is _more_ than what he wanted. What he dreamed of as he squeezed her close and rubbed himself on her. What he imagined when she was stretching on the gymnasium mats or sucking on her spoon or smiling at Finn. When he imagined finally being inside of her, it was a tenth of this.

Her mouth falls open, and she cries out her release, her mind swirling through his for the first time in weeks.

He's coming, moaning and cursing and jerking. She feels all of it.

Her eyes roll back in her head, and she quivers with the unrelenting pleasure of it, the echo of the two of them across the galaxy.

It's so far away from darkness, from sinister voices. It's just the two of them.

Tears are falling down her face when she's able to think again. He's kissing them away, panting harshly against her cheeks.

She kisses him, her tongue lazy in his mouth.

When she pulls away, she can see the tears in his own eyes.

"Is it always like that?" she asks, throat sore from screaming her release.

"No. Never." His eyes can't stop drifting over her face. "When my knee is healed," he says, "I'm going to fuck you on a bed. And when my foot is healed, I'll turn you over this console and fuck you while you watch the stars. And when my side is healed—"

"I get it." She laughs and kisses him again. He holds her close, moaning when her breasts rub against his chest.

She helps him change his bandages a few hours later. When she's on her knees in front of him, fixing his knee, he apologizes for the way he cock reacts. She smiles, and leans forward to start licking at him, sucking him into her mouth. She likes the sounds he makes and the way his eyes roll back. He pulls her up and sets her on his lap, facing the viewport. She bounces herself on him, and his hands work at her breasts and her clit until she cries out.

When it's time to set a course, they jump across a few star systems, getting lost in unfamiliar planets for a few hours. The Resistance hails them the next morning, and Rey answers Leia, telling her that they are alright — they are going to bring Luke Skywalker back with them. She winks at Ben, and he nods at her.

"But in a few weeks. We're going to Naboo first."

It's the first time she's heard General Organa stutter over her words.

Naboo is green and bright. There's clear water and enough people to get lost in. Ben takes her to the island Varykino and the palace there (Ben laughs and tells her it's not a palace, but Rey doesn't believe him). The Force pulls her to a veranda in the evenings, and she stares out at the water every night until Ben asks her to come to bed.

They sleep there for a week, getting lost in the largest bed she's ever seen — white sheets and soft pillows and Ben's body beside her in the mornings, clutching her close and asking permission to be inside of her again. In every way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://lovesbitca8.tumblr.com/) and [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/).

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [ Tumblr ](https://lovesbitca8.tumblr.com/) and [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/).


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